#the differences between black people in predominantly non-black communities

[hinasho]

BLACK PANTHER (2018)

WAKANDA FOREVER (2022)

[vtuberconfessions]

As Uki Violeta “is racism against white people real racism” is the trending topic right now, I want to put in my two cents as a half-white person living in a predominantly non-white country.

White people receive tend to receive racism in the same way French people and English people are racist towards each other. It can be real! There can be real animosity! It can be genuinely isolating and uncomfortable to try and interact with someone who will automatically think of you as less worthy of respect and take you less seriously.

When you’re in an Asian or other non-majority white country, worse stuff can happen too. People won’t take you seriously as a candidate for job offers, possibly leaving you unemployed. When you try to date, people who thought liked you as a person may only be dating you as the “exotic option”. You’re isolated because nobody really wants to mark themselves as the first person to be a friend with the new white-adjacent guy in town.

(These all happen to black people too btw.)

That is all racism. To see the world and treat people different according to their race. Uki Violeta is in that sense racist. However, you may note, that none of the people who have ever made fun of me or excluded me in this country have ever, and this is key: been descended from someone who kept one of my ancestors in a concentration camp, or as a slave.

I am descended from Korea and Latvia. Korean women were historically kept as sex slaves by Imperial Japan during WWII. One of my great grandfathers was arrested and put in a Nazi concentration camp. Both sides experienced racially motivated, horrific war crimes. I feel very attached to both parts of my history, and if I ever saw a Neo-Nazi or Russian Imperialist say “oh, the Baltics aren’t real countries”, or a Japanese Imperialist said “those women probably liked it”, I would fucking throw hands so, so fast.

I have now listed three types of fairly serious racism, that many cultures, even white people, face:

A) Reminder of Atrocity that members of one ethnic group committed against another, with an implied threat to do it again. (Read: Anti-semitism, “Indigenous people are savage and should be Civilised”, “The confederates won/should have won the American civil war”)

B) Rejection from being part of the natural fabric of society. (Read: When you speak French in France and nobody is willing to speak to you in French and subtly belittle you for not sounding native. When people double take when you walk into a room because you don’t look like the average person. When none of your classmates are willing to take the first step to be friends with you and so you spend each lesson alone.)

C) Hostility between semi-equals. (Those annoying ass [neighboring country people], they eat [insulting food] and all talk like this [offensive accent].)

Uki Violeta is American. Unlike other places, say Ireland or Eastern Europe, White people in America have not been the victims of mass atrocities and the mass eradication of culture. Unlike China, Japan, or India, non-white people do not hold the keys to the gates of community and most social groups. The things Uki Violeta says, in the grand scheme of things, is most equivalent to those memes about how Italian people all talk like “a Mama Mia, a Pizza Pie ina my Stomacharoni!”

So yeah, Uki Violeta is racist. But because of just how much goddamn racism black people deal with in America, a lot of people seem to think that racism means “that thing when people are mean to Black People, and it’s really really bad and awful”. But like… it’s not just that. It’s just a way of being an asshole without thinking, of treating someone as a representation of the stereotypes about their race. And White Americans are pretty lucky to have their stereotypes be “kinda annoying” and “too friendly” and not “rapist”, “greedy rat”, “violent terrorist” or “inferior, disobedient slave”.

TL;DR: “Oh, what Uki Violeta is saying is racist, imagine if you replaced “White” with “Black”, then you’d see it!” I mean sure. But also, what if you replaced “White” with “The French”? It’d still be kinda racist but you can see how it’s also not that big of a deal right? Uki is an asshole and you can choose not to watch him, but if you’re not already watching him you don’t have to go on about it. Move to Japan or something and then you can complete about racist people you actually have to deal with on a day-to-day basis.

.

[itmeblog]

So...

I've learned more about the couch fucker❤️. Also against my will. I'll link the article below. It's hbomberguy levels of biased so take that as you will.

So JD Vance wrote a forward for a book with a release date that has been pushed back until a week after the election. But early copies n all. Someone read it and wrote an article that will go into more detail than I will.

BUT what it does do, at the very least is contextualize some Republican actions.

If you've been watching the news I'm sure you've noticed that the right and left are currently occupying 2 different realities. One is supported by objective fact the other is... currently under siege by a nonexistent violent wave of immigrants stealing *checks notes* Black jobs. They're also apparently pedophiles and murderers because that wasn't enough.

Regardless, this read helped me understand their actions. Because, I find, when people go this far their actions are *logical* if only to themselves.

Here's my totally biased take on what's going on.

To understand Republicans you must acknowledge that their reality is fundamentally different. It is constantly under attack (by whom? Everyone) There is no freedom but *your* freedom codified somewhere between the Civil War and the 1920s (people are saying 50s but it's the 20s they don't just want bodily autonomy they want to take away the right of women to vote, you can find the sentiment in tradwife spaces and in JD Vances mentors statements) your prejudices may extend well into the 50s for non white individuals. So long as white meets modern definitions.

So first and foremost you must know that China is an existential threat. As is globalization. China, in particular, is stealing American manufacturing jobs, spying on you, stealing from you, brainwashing your kids etc. You're probably on the cusp of war.

Hence the weird 2018 policies and the TikTok ban.

The way to combat this? Prayer, family values (the nuclear family is the bedrock of American values) and bringing back low paying manufacturing jobs but for that you need more bodies.

Prayer comes first. A man's religion shapes his morality and the only religion that counts is your specific brand of Christianity. (Hence the move to add the 10 commandments in schools and in school prayer). Having that will unite the US in faith which is important because...

Babies! There aren't enough babies!! But remaining willfully child free is not a financial or personal choice. It's a choice predicated on a lack of Faith. You don't have kids? You have no faith in the American future and you have no faith in the fact that God and community will help you make ends meet. Having children is not only an American duty but a godly one. (Note: church and state are a single unit)

Hence the abortion laws and the refusal to grant the right to birth control. [Birth control has made having children seem "unnatural" and was funded by eugenicists to cut down the population, porn and modern tech have made men impotent] Also likely the reason to defund public education as public schools have to follow laws that privately funded schools do not. Besides all that new labor force [in predominantly poor areas who will need to Golden Ticket their way into a good private school, look up voucher programs for more on this] need not be educated enough to understand how much they're being taken advantage of.

Gun laws comes from the distrust in cops and big government!! Yes!!! Oddly enough the thin blue line values do not extend here! The Uvalde shooting was *that* bad. But you must protect yourself with roving bands of militias should a BLM protest come your way! Remember the Koreatown values after the Rodney King debacle? That. The ability to arm yourself and defend your community and beliefs from threats by m&m haired liberals and BLM will harken back to the days of the wild west the most American time there was!

By doing all this you can reestablish old values, reinvigorate the economy, and bring back American strength!

If you're sitting back thinking none of this makes sense and will in fact make things worse... you must remember that you have been trained to be afraid and angry. At all times you are scared and you are angry because you are scared. You are under constant attack the rest of your community echoes these sentiments back at you.

Doubting your leader is akin to doubting faith. Leaving any of this means you risk losing your community. You will be alone and belittled, without God, without friends, without family, without structure and all that's left is the world you have learned from a very young age, hates you for your very existence.

[earthly--truth]

What I believe in

These are my beliefs as someone who aligns with democratic socialism and progressivism. Feel free to critique it, challenge it, even just a few sections, whatever, but this is what I believe will make the world a better place, because people (and animals) deserve to live the best possible lives they can live with the only chance at life they got. This is going to be super general and long, and not get into nearly everything, but I hope it sheds a positive light on leftism.

Strong unions so that workers (the majority of people in society) have the ability have better footing to negotiate better wages, work hours, vacation days, benefits, etc. I also believe that in instances where it’s pragmatically viable that there should be a push for more worker co-op’s, in which every employee has a stake in the company they work at, and the ability to give their input (all companies should strive for more democracy). Both of these contribute to healthier, happier, and, and better payed people.

Raising the minimum wage in the U.S to $15 an hour. The current wage of  $7.25 is way too low. It’s just not a livable wage. There’s a reason why McDonald’s and Walmart are called corporate welfare queens, and it’s because they’re employees require welfare to survive, despite being the biggest corporations on the planet with multi-billionaire CEO’s. The richest in society should also pay more in taxes.

Stop investing so much in the American military, cut it by a third if you can. (Firstly this frees up a lot of money for other things) Get the military out of the middle east, and create other more peaceful avenues to ensure it doesn’t crumble like every single time the military pulls out and doesn’t try to actually fix the mess they created. The people in the middle east deserve to be able to rebuild and they’ll need help to do that (just not the type of help where america installs their own leaders).

Healthcare should be universal, paid for by taxes. Every developed nation is capable of doing it. Many developing countries are doing it. Americans pay more in taxes for healthcare than so many other countries, yet a trip to the hospital still can put you in debt for the rest of your life. That is inhumane, and people shouldn’t have to choose between crippling debt and their health.

There’s also an argument to be made for free/way cheaper university, since countries like Canada or America force people to get a degree if they want to live a decent life, yet in order to do that you have to pay $15,000 a year for university. A system like that either forces people to skip out on uni, or again go into major debt. If Europe can figure it out, I think the U.S and Canada can figure it out too.

Black Lives Matter. To be more specific, I want police/criminal justice/prison reform. I want police de-militarized and to stop acting so abusive towards to civilians and real justice for the police that do, I want an end on the war on drugs (this helps drug addicts get help and delivers a blow to gangs and the cartel). I want an end to mass incarceration and laws that make it easier to throw people in jail for years for basically nothing. I want an end to for profit prisons. I want an end to the policy of retribution rather than rehabilitation for inmates (countries who rehabilitate are way more successful at non-returning inmates). I want an end to treating prisoners like slaves so corporations can get cheap labour. I also want the government to actually start caring about the poorest communities, many of which are predominantly black and latino (in cities anyways). (Also the indigenous in Canada). Better infrastructure, better public works programs. These all contribute to the proliferation of these communities and helps lessen the potential for criminality by making their lives better.

The dismantling of gender norms and roles, and de-stigmatization of LGBTQ+ people. I want people to be whoever they want to be. For far too long we have expected men and women to act a certain way. Women have come a long way, but there are still remnants of the old way of looking at things. We still have a lot of social stigma about how women should look, and that they are not worth even paying attention to if they aren’t conventionally attractive. We still have social stigma about sexuality and sex work. We hyper sexualize women in the media, yet shame women as sluts if they have a lot of sex. We shame women who choose abortion as murderers, yet don’t offer any support for the mother once the child has arrived. On top of that, the positions of power are still predominantly very old men. I also believe in helping men. Men are lonelier, men are increasingly staying sexless (not by choice), men are getting more suicidal. I want to address this two ways. One, by tackling toxic masculinity (not masculinity itself, just the bad parts). TM is telling men to man up and not to cry, TM is telling men not to act feminine or gay. TM is telling men to bottle up their emotions and resolve their problems through violence. The second way to address this is through my beliefs about workers. Men are the most suicidal in countries where there is a heavy work culture, like Japan and South Korea. Where they can’t have lives, and live to make money for the company they work at. That isn’t good.

When it comes to LGBTQ+ people, we need more positive representation in the media. We need people to see gay, trans, and non-binary people as normal people. When it comes to trans people specifically, we need to end the constant wars against them. Whether you’re talking about bathrooms, or sports, or children/teens receiving trans affirming healthcare. Let trans people be the gender that they say there are in the places they want to be, and allow them to receive the healthcare they need which is just the overwhelming medical consensus. This, combined with more supportive parents. all goes a long way to reducing the suicide rate amonst trans people.

The proliferation of the developing world. I want developing countries to be more autonomous, and to stop being under the boot of western corporations. I want an end to sweatshop labour or borderline sweatshop labour. I want the west to stop treating these actual people like their robots for pennies to produce our ungodly amounts of junk, and to actually pay these people decent wages. I want the world bank to stop giving money in an exploitative way to poor nations so that they cave to western business interests. These are people, human beings, and they deserve to develop and live good lives just like us. I also want them to fight for democracy in their countries.

Environmentalism. To go off the last section, 100 Corporations are contributing 71% of greenhouse gases. That needs to change. Corporations are participating ungodly amounts of devastations to eco-systems and the atmosphere. Ecosystems destroyed, and the exacerbation of the climate crises. I want a green and blue earth, and that can start by a) changing to green energy as much as humanly possible; solar, wind, and even nuclear (and whatever we come up with in the future) are far better than the fossil fuels we use now, which we’ll run out of anyways. And second we need to hold corporations accountable for destroying the planet. If we don’t do this, we risk the climate crises getting really bad. Oceans rising which will flood coastlines, creating millions of refugees, more periods of extreme dry (no water/bush fires) and extreme cold (look at what happened to texas). Something needs to be done about it.

Finally, veganism, for many reasons. One, the switch to veganism will be a big contributor to saving the planet. Whether you’re talking about the devastation we do to places like the Amazon Rain forest and other ecosystems to clear the way for animal farming, or whether you’re talking about reducing emissions. Most emissions and waste from agriculture are from the production phase of animal farming. So much food, water, and energy is wasted by giving it to billions of animals that we purposefully breed into existence, then slaughter, rinse and repeat, every single year, when we could just grow food and give water to people and skip out the middle man (think about how many people are hungry and without water in the world).

Philosophically, it is also wrong to kill a living creature that desires to live, that is able to connect with other living things and it surrounding, to form bonds. A cow, pig, chicken, lamb, sheep, are no different than a dog, cat, or rabbit, and they should not be killed, exploited, and tortured (confinement, abusive conditions in industrial farms) for pleasure. I know it’s pleasure for most people, because vegans are living proof that you can live happy and healthy lives without animal products. Vegans are statistically healthier than non-vegans, and we can get all the nutrients we need, even on an inexpensive diet. There are exceptions of course. A very small portion of people literally cannot eat plants and can only eat meat, and the developing world doesn’t have the same access to vegan products as the developed world does. Those people are valid, but many many people can make the switch and they should, especially in the developed world

All I see from this is making the world better. Hopefully you can too.

[nostalgicatsea]

Racism in the Marvel fandom as seen through the number of fanworks per M/M ship on AO3

I talked about this on Twitter, but I'm posting it here with tweaks and additions.

A couple of notes about the ship selection process:

I focused on M/M ships here as they're the biggest and most common on AO3 overall and, for the most part, the Marvel fandom

I put aside my personal feelings, so the following selection ranges from my OTP and ships I like to ships I dislike or am squicked by and NOTPs. The big ships and crack/niche ships are ones that have the most popular male characters or I’ve seen come up the most often, but I'm sure the pattern is consistent with more minor characters and subfandoms with fewer works

I focused on ships that exist in the MCU (film side only, no TV), only or in addition to other universes, just to simplify things. The MCU fandom is the biggest, and it gets complicated once you throw in other universes considering the vastness of the Marvel multiverse

I looked at the overall fanwork count for the ships rather than fanworks for that ship in the MCU tag as people tend to miscategorize their works

As of 6/19/20:

AO3 fanworks of big MCU/MCU-based ships: 

Steve/Bucky: 50,501 

Steve/Tony: 36,638 

Loki/Thor: 13,071

Clint/Coulson: 10,940

Loki/Tony: 9,880

Bucky/Tony: 7,504

Spideypool: 7,271

Starker: 6,073 

Ironstrange: 4,844 

Bruce/Tony: 4,734

Bucky/Clint: 3,841

Stuckony: 2,331

AO3 fanworks of MCU/MCU-based ships with 1 or more POC where the characters interact a few times, have meaningful relationships with each other, or have genuine or crack potential: 

Sam/Bucky: 3,023

Steve/Sam: 2,908

Rhodey/Tony: 1,434

Erik/T'Challa: 578 

Ned/Peter: 429

Coulson/Fury: 264

M'Baku/T'Challa: 155 

Rhodey/Sam: 149

Strange/Wong: 82 

Heimdall/Thor: 50

Scott/Jimmy Woo: 36

Scott/Luis: 24

Fury/Pierce: 16 (fandom is also ageist)

The disparity between the two lists is particularly egregious when you consider:

Clint and Coulson had 17 seconds of dialogue and 7 lines with each other and never interacted again after Thor. This is a generous estimate as I included pauses

Loki and Tony haven't interacted since The Avengers 

The only time Bucky and Tony as a duo and Steve, Bucky, Tony as a trio interact is in the bunker in Siberia

Spideypool includes a character who isn't even in the MCU

Ironstrange didn't exist or really exist in MCU fanworks before 2018, and Tony and Strange only communicate once in their second movie together, with Strange holding up his finger silently 

Bucky and Clint never interact with each other

I’ll be focusing on the Captain America, Avengers, and Iron Man subfandoms first as those are the three biggest in the MCU. Before I start, here's my thread from last year about some of the ships I’ll be mentioning. 

Okay. How does Bucky/Tony have 6,070 more fanworks than Rhodey/Tony and 4,481 more than Sam/Bucky and Bucky/Clint have 818 more than Sam/Bucky? How do Loki/Tony and Ironstrange have 8,446 and 3,410 more fanworks than Rhodey/Tony, respectively, and Stuckony almost as many as Steve/Sam?

The gap is especially glaring when you compare Steve/Bucky and Steve/Tony to Steve/Sam, Sam/Bucky, and Rhodey/Tony; however, though it's important to point out that wide gulf, I lose my mind more over the fact that ships with white characters who have never interacted or only exchanged a few lines (Clint/Coulson never even STAND IN THE SAME ROOM, and they're one of the top ships!) have more fanworks than ships with POC who do or have potential. 

I will point out that at least with the MCU Spider-Man and Black Panther fandoms, you do see some diversity with their big ships (I’m including some M/F ships here to make a point in the next paragraph). MJ/Peter has 3,518 fanworks, and in addition to the two T’Challa ships above, Nakia/T’Challa has 286, MJ/Shuri 220, Bucky/Shuri 210, and Peter/Shuri 140 (Black Panther is a much smaller fandom, but some ship numbers are higher if you put BP and non-BP characters together, e.g., Tony/T’Challa (405) and Bucky/T’Challa (345). 

It's important to note, however, that these two films are significantly more racially diverse than all other MCU films; in fact, they're very much the outliers. These ships and Ned/Peter are also heavy indicators of racism in this fandom. These numbers are very low compared to the big ships, and there are fewer works for these fandoms especially in BP’s case. Additionally, ships with white non-BP characters rank second, third, sixth, and eighth in the fandom (Bucky isn’t a BP character as he is only in the post-credits scene). Nakia/T’Challa is canon but outranked by Tony/T’Challa and Bucky/T’Challa, and all other ships with only BP characters, not listed here as the numbers are much lower other than M’Baku/T’Challa (second-lowest among the listed), are outranked by all the ships with white non-BP characters. 

To sum up everything I said above:

white M/M ships are extremely overrepresented by a huge margin, even if they have little to no canonical basis

interracial ships are poorly represented even if the characters have meaningful relationships or potential (and even if they clearly have all the traits that would ensure that they would be a big ship had the character of color been white)

the ships with the least representation by a longggggg mile are ones that involve only POC. Their fanwork count is, aside from Erik/T’Challa (578), in the low 100s and 200s. Countless ships are below the 100 mark. 

If you want to make this even more infuriating, here's a random selection of white (or in one case, AI) crack ships and ships that are more niche that I’ve seen to compare to the ships of color above: 

Clint/Tony: 1,423

Loki/Steve: 1,251 

Clint/Steve: 986 

Bucky/Rumlow: 984 

Clint/Pietro: 837 

Hydrahusbands: 770 

Grandmaster/Loki: 633 

Steve/Rumlow: 547 

Steve/Howard: 457 

JARVIS/Tony: 414

And just for the hell of it because Darcy, a minor character who appears in only two movies and last appeared in 2013, shows up all the time in MCU fanworks (17,004 (these include ones where she’s not paired with anyone)) and is probably one of the top three or four little black dresses/fandom bicycles: 

Darcy/Steve: 3,013

Darcy/Bucky: 2,640

Darcy/Loki: 1,558

Darcy/Clint: 1,107

Darcy/Steve/Bucky: 676

Darcy/Tony: 326

The Darcy situation is a post for another day (she has more fanworks than all other female characters except ~3 women), but in the context of this post, it’s absurd that nearly all of the non-canonical ships above which feature characters whom Darcy has never interacted with (I don’t even remember if Darcy interacted with Loki) have more fanworks than the listed ships of color.

That said, if you like the aforementioned white M/M ships, even if they have little to no canonical basis, that's okay. Anything goes in fandom. It IS a problem, though, if you have more than one ship, but ALL of them are white M/M ships or, if you like F/F and M/F, those are also all white. If you only create and consume works for a single ship, which a good number of people do (many people only get into a fandom because of an OTP!), it's fine if it's a white M/M ship. Honestly, it’s not that surprising either considering most of the screen time and meaty development is given to white characters because of racism (that's a post for another day). However, it IS a problem if most or all of your other ships across your current and previous fandoms are white—and if the only media you consume is predominantly or all white.

This post is longer than planned, but tl;dr, fandom has a racism problem which is nothing new, and we should all examine the following and see and remedy any implicit biases that we have:

our feelings about different characters and relationships, both platonic and romantic

our decision whether or not to seek or make content with characters of color. This includes content with your white ships that have POC in the work because sometimes every other white character in the MCU show up except them or all of them play bigger roles than the POC despite their relationship with the protagonist(s)

the way we interpret and write/draw those characters. For example, is Sam a yes-man? An unofficial or official therapist for white friends? The bro who cracks jokes and/or gives sage advice but seems to not have any flaws, struggles, or life of his own outside of his white friends? The BFF who thinks his white best friend is being dumb about another white guy and wants them to get their act together already?)

[itariilles]

My Statement on Tolkien 2019

[ French translation and German translation availible. ]

It has been incredibly difficult for me to speak on my experiences regarding my experiences of hostility and othering in spaces that I loved and still hold dear to my heart, and for that reason I have been silent. That is until now. 

I have decided that now is the right time for me to come forward with my experience and statement regarding my negative experience as a person of colour engaging in Tolkien spaces. 

I want people involved in the wider Tolkien community to reflect on their roles in the specific spaces they inhabit, and how you can foster a better environment for marginalised groups to interact and engage with those spaces in a safe and inclusive manner. 

Take your time to listen and put effort into listening to fans of colour when they are speaking about their lived experiences and their grievances especially when they are speaking about a topic as personal as racism. Being critical of a work you love and the media surrounding it is not easy thing, but we need to recognise that these criticisms are valid and deserve to be taken seriously when it affects a collective of people across different backgrounds. 

I want to preface this by stating that I am speaking only for myself and my own lived experience as a vocal young non-black POC in a predominantly white space. I acknowledge that my experience is by no means universal or indicative of all POC in Tolkien fandom spaces. 

I also understand that real life interactions differ widely from interactions on online fandom spaces, but there are disturbing similarities across both online and real life spaces with specific regard to the environment and treatment of vocal POC in both. 

The tragedy is many people do not realise their impact not only on the individuals involved, but on the wider attitude towards POC voices in fandom when the topic of racism is discussed. We need to build safe environments where critical discussions of diversity and race from the people most affected by them are taken to heart, not invalidated or spoken over as targets of microaggressions. 

To give a bit of context, Tolkien 2019 was an in person conference organised by the Tolkien Society (which I was a member of at the time). The official website for Tolkien 2019 has been taken down but the Tolkien Society has a nice summary written in August 2018 breaking down the event here. 

I was approached by the Education Secretary at the time about my possible involvement in a panel discussing the history and future of the Tolkien Society which I elaborate on further in my statement. It was the first time I had felt that I had a platform where I could freely express my voice as a diverse reader and consumer of Tolkien media who held diversity in Tolkien as a core value in the wider Tolkien brand. 

I felt that as the only non-white member on the panel I had an obligation to speak out on the topic of diversity when it was raised. I tried to speak briefly about some of the points and discourses I had heard on portrayals of diversity in Tolkien media with as much nuance as I could manage at the time. In response to some points I had made I was met with vocal disapproval by some audience members and visible signs of disapproval and hostile body language from others. 

This was made even more jarring when later during the course of the event when two white creators hinted at vague notions of diversity were met with a far greater degree of approval. The former instance was during the context of a panel regarding the upcoming LOTR on Prime series, and the latter was during a talk presented by the chair of the Tolkien Society.

I felt intimidated and reluctant to involve myself any further in the Tolkien fandom, especially in real life spaces as my experience at Tolkien 2019 had only solidified and reaffirmed my fears and unease I had engaging in a predominantly white fandom with few visible POC members and creators who tackle topics of diversity and racism in both the community and source texts.

Following this event I was approached by an affiliate of one of the attendees who very kindly took the time to listen to me and suggested that I should write a statement in response to my experience. To my knowledge, my statement has not been shared or published on any platform yet and this will be the first time I have ever spoken about it publicly. 

Since then some of my thoughts and opinions on certain aspects of Tolkien fandom and meta have shifted or evolved which I will hopefully expand on in the future, but I wanted to share my initial unchanged statement I wrote reflecting my immediate reaction to my experience. 

I want to be seen as a Tolkien creative and critical thinker above anything else, but I cannot move forward with my work without speaking about my lived experience in a space which has been consistently hostile to me and so many others across different Tolkien spaces for so many years starting with my account of this one experience.

I hope my statement finds itself in good hands and I will always be willing to engage with others about my experiences so long as you engage with me in good faith. 

The statement I wrote on 25/09/2019 is as follows:

From the 9th to 11th of August of this year I attended a conference held by the Tolkien society aptly named “Tolkien 2019” that advertised itself as the “largest celebration of Tolkien ever held by the Society” in which I both spoke as a panelist and independant speaker. The event itself was a mixture of both formal and informal panels, papers presented by selected members of the society, and evening social events.

My invitation to speak on the “History of the Tolkien Society” panel was presented as deliberate choice made by the panel organiser as a gateway for discussion about diversity and representation in Tolkien. On the official programme, the panel was described as a discussion concerning “what the Tolkien Society and Tolkien fandom in general may become as it encounters digital spaces, issues of representation and diversity, academic interest and a myriad other factors that make up our lived experience today”.

Although there was much excitement and anticipation on my half in the weeks and days leading up to the event, it soon turned to dread when the tone and climate of the discussion dawned on me when I took my seat alongside five other panelists ranging from seasoned Tolkien scholars, long-time members of the Society, and a member with a leadership position within the Society. On that four person panel, I was the only one racialised as non-white. In fact, I was one of only three people in a room of approximately fifty to sixty people racialised as non-white.

It wasn’t long before the true motive of placing me — a young, new member of the Society, who felt already out of place and out of my depth even being offered the opportunity to participate in the first place — on a panel of what I perceived to be more seasoned members of the society.

When the topic of diversity and representation in the Tolkien fandom was raised by the moderator, I saw it as an opportunity for me to share my own experiences as a young fan who predominantly consumed Tolkien content online, as well as some observations I had made regarding the current pop-cultural perception of Tolkien as being heavily influenced, if not wholly entered around the Peter Jackson trilogies and being deeply ingrained with the issues that seep from those interpretations into our overall perception of the Tolkien brand.

One of the talking points that seemed to have caused the biggest uproar and dissent was one in which I referred Tolkien’s description of Sam’s hands as brown in two instances — the first in the Two Towers, and the second instance in Return of the King and how this has been translated into film as both literal and symbolic interpretations. The former in the Ralph Bakshi’s the “Lord of the Rings” released in 1978 in which I noted that the decision to portray Sam as more ethnically ambiguous compared to the other Hobbits was a deliberate choice, whereas the latter was depicted in the recent Peter Jackson trilogy released in the early 2000’s took the description symbolically and cast the white American actor Sean Astin for the role.

The backlash I received for this was, I believe, absolutely disproportionate to the views I expressed. I saw members frown and grunt in disapproval, as well as some visibly shake their heads at me. In spite of me parroting how I saw both interpretations as equally valid as a defence mechanism in the face of such an aggressive response to what to me seemed like an innocuous observation made by a young person of colour who did not see many portrayals of people of colour in Tolkien. 

Comments such as “I don’t care who they cast as Sam whether he’s black, brown, yellow, blue or green!” and “Tolkien’s message is universal I don’t see how race factors into this!” were shouted in between points I was making, and countless others were made as an effort to dismiss the effort I put in to hopefully start an open dialogue about the lack of diversity in adaptations of Tolkien and how it has coloured our perception of the overall brand, and perhaps fantasy as a whole.

Some other talking points I decided to mention included Peter Jackson’s Easterlings (coded as being North African or Middle Eastern in the film) as being appallingly Orientalist and damaging in a post-911 world, as well as referring to Tolkien’s vague descriptions of certain characters and people groups that can be interpreted as ethnic coding or perhaps hint at a more diverse cast than the popular brand of Tolkien that may have us believe. I iterated that it is the responsibility of consumers of Tolkien and Tolkien related media to push for different interpretations of the text in order to break the perception that Tolkien’s works are entirely Anglo and Eurocentric with no place for people of colour in the vast world he had created in my opinion as a love letter to his own.

A month later it is still difficult for me to fully wrap my head around what I had experienced during the conference, much less articulating it in a statement, but if there is a note I would like to conclude on it would be this: it was never about changing Tolkien’s works, but reinterpreting his 20th century text littered with colonial artefacts and reimagining the foundations of his work through a 21st century lens in an attempt to decolonise the interpretation of his works in popular culture.

To change the way we read, write and depict the Tolkien brand is to fundamentally change the landscape of the entire genre of fantasy which has and still derives so heavily from Tolkien’s works and the global Tolkien brand.

End.

[jewish-privilege]

It wasn’t until I started converting to Judaism that I realized that anti-Semitism is very much alive and well — and it’s only getting worse.

Last year saw the most anti-Semitic incidents in 40 years, according to the Anti-Defamation League. While the numbers aren’t yet in for 2020, there have been anti-Semitic events every month of the year so far.

And yet, when I talk to my family about anti-Semitism and why I don’t feel safe here in America anymore, they don’t quite understand.

I don’t expect them to, either. If you have never been discriminated against for your identity, then you simply can’t comprehend how it could happen to others, either. You don’t know how scary and powerless you feel when people say they hate you.

Growing up in a white home in a predominantly white neighborhood in Baltimore, I never once faced racism or any form of discrimination. My family and I pretty much looked like everyone else. We could blend in and there were no differences between the people in our community and us.

On the other hand, in high school, when my mom moved us to Pikesville, a predominantly Orthodox Jewish neighborhood, I noticed that they looked different from us right away. Mostly, I’d see them on Saturdays, wearing all black and pushing baby strollers. The only thoughts that crossed my mind were, “Wow, Jewish people walk a lot,” and “They must be really hot in that dark clothing.”

Unlike my mom and I, they couldn’t hide who they were.

Today, I’m one of those Jews walking on Shabbat around my neighborhood, which is a little frightening nowadays. But the few times when I have experienced real anti-Semitism, ironically, have occurred when I wasn’t easily identifiable as an Orthodox Jew. Like the time my landlord told me her father used to “Jew people down,” or when my Uber driver said Jews control the world and like to make little children into matzoh ball soup (really!). The topic came up because we were driving through a predominantly Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Los Angeles and he spotted some haredi Jews.  

(...) It took me a while to get to this place, though. I didn’t want to comment on anti-Semitism because I didn’t want to seem like I was being dramatic. One thing that anti-Semites say online is that anti-Semitism doesn’t actually exist, and Jews make it up or are exaggerating it.

(...) This summer, I witnessed #JewishPrivilege shift from an anti-Semitic hashtag on Twitter to one where Jews were sharing their anti-Semitic trauma. I shared the landlord and Uber stories, and also posted, “#JewishPrivilege is when a Hollywood agent yelled at my husband, a comedian, for taking off Jewish holidays because ‘You can’t do that in this business!’” and “#JewishPrivilege is having to hire an armed guard for our synagogue because Jews were massacred in Pittsburgh and Poway.”

I received more engagement than I’ve ever achieved on the platform. One person told me “F— Israel” and another called me a “heathen” for converting. But overall, I found massive support from non-Jews and Jews alike, with many retweeting me and agreeing with what I had said. It empowered me to keep tweeting about anti-Semitism.

(...) Unfortunately, a lot of non-Jews think that anti-Semitism is a thing of the past that died with the Holocaust and society has advanced since then. I certainly did before I converted. But when talking about anti-Semitism in the classroom, it has to go way beyond the Holocaust so people can very much realize it’s alive and well today.

Recently, a teenager asked my husband to take off his hat so he could see if he had horns. Maybe if that teen had gotten a better education on anti-Semitism, he would have thought twice before saying that.

When I talk to my family about how America is quickly becoming like Europe before the Holocaust and how I want to move to Israel one day, they say “Really?” and find it hard to believe.

“Why would you move so far away?” they ask. I tell them I want to survive. I send them news articles to back up my claims. I hope they’re beginning to understand. I hope they see that Pittsburgh and Poway were not isolated incidents but indicative of a bigger issue going on.

It may seem dramatic, but I’m OK with being dramatic now. I’m not going to apologize for bringing up the trauma I’ve experienced. That’s not my job. I’m done with feeling powerless.

If our collective chorus gets louder and louder, and we tell our non-Jewish friends and family about anti-Semitism, they may just start to understand — and become valuable allies in the process.

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

Hello! I just found your yt channel (it's amazing) and watched your video on writing diversely. What an awesome video, I learnt and took away a lot from you and your thoughts, especially as a white writer. I am still however a little conflicted on one thing. Not just writing the characters as another race or gender or identity of any kind from the writer, but the actual main character. Would it automatically be offensive and destined for failure for a white author to write a black main protag?

Hi there! I’m happy you found the video helpful, thank you for watching! This is a link to the video if anyone reading this has not watched it.

To be honest, I think I explained this as concisely and accurately as I could in the video as it’s truly the thesis of the video itself. I don’t want to fully reiterate what I said in the video because I feel like I won’t be as accurate/coherent, so I urge you to rewatch the video and take care to look at the timestamps as that may clarify your particular question, first and foremost! Taking a look at some of the comments too might also be helpful.

Stay in your lane as a detrimental, albeit well-intentioned, mantra

As I say in the video, it’s not as easy as saying “white people can’t write XYZ main character” or “we can write whatever we want”, nor is it as easy as and saying “stay in your line” , which may inadvertently enforce the majority as publishing is majorly white (stats are in the video). I believe I did address main characters too in that video, but whatever I said about characters in general 100% applies to POV/main characters as I was rebutting the well-intentioned, but perhaps detrimental idea that it’s only appropriate for a marginalized POV character to be written by someone marginalized in the same way (IMO, long-term, this will cause an influx of white POV stories which is the opposite of the intention [people say “stay in your lane” will allow marginalized folks to represent themselves rather than have white people represent us] as the publishing industry a) is mostly white and b) only seems to care to actively publish white people. “Stay in your lane” may also inadvertently define the role a marginalized person should play in the writing industry [responsible for writing stories about their marginalization]).

Writing POC main characters = automatically offensive/destined to fail?

If you’re viewing or questioning if writing a POC MC is “automatically offensive” or “destined for failure” I really urge you to rewatch the video because this is covered quite extensively but particularly take a look at the “trade fear for empathy” section as this question in itself is laden in a black and white binary of right versus wrong. If you’re asking this question, it might be that you are lacking the empathy to understand what I’m saying in the video (which is okay! there are many others who I’ve further discussed with in the comments). Writing POC isn’t something that’s destined to fail just because you’re a white author IF you do your research, be respectful, write empathetically and craft well-rounded, complex people. If you’re thinking you might automatically fail in this department because you are a white person, I did mention in the video that you may not be ready to write diverse characters in the respectful, robust ways necessary because you may be viewing POC as a “pass or fail” system which is obviously not what we are. If you want to write a diverse POV character and you do your research, write empathetically, speak to those people from that community (with their consent) and be willing to adjust your representation with that feedback without getting defensive, I don’t see how this would be automatically offensive or destined for failure, just like anything else that requires research.

Disproportionate amounts of white versus POC writers being published

In terms of publication failure, white people are actually the ones being majorly represented to write marginalized stories (when they don’t share that marginalization), so you probably wouldn’t have a problem getting a POC-lead story published (not saying I think this is right) because publishers treat diversity as a quota/marketing tactic and IMO, don’t seem to actually care about representation on a structural level, but rather on a topical, superficial level (which is why my main point in that video is that publishers, not individual writers, need to be held accountable).

White writers accidentally “dehumanize” POC in a misguided attempt at being empathetic

I think some white people, (and I don’t exactly want to use this word because it is quite severe but illustrates what I mean) may accidentally “dehumanize” people of colour in worrying that whatever move they’re going to make is automatically going to offend us, when in reality, if you take the time, and put in the effort to research and get to know people of colour (from my comments, these worries often stem from white people who don’t know many people of colour IRL), you will see that yes, we are different from you and difference is good, but no, this difference does not make us an untouchable, unknowable species. I don’t mean to make this seem like an “I don’t see colour” or “the only race is the human race” argument, which would be harmful, but rather a reminder that people of colour are also human beings and as you would write a white character with empathy, integrity, and vigour, you should also do the same when writing characters of colour (I address this in more detail in the video).

Doing personal research in times of confusion

I understand that as a white person, thinking about and understanding these issues may not be particularly easy, and even after a nearly hour long video of me expressing these thoughts, I genuinely do understand why someone who is not affected by these issues daily may still struggle with grasping these concepts. That’s because anti-racism is not something you can accomplish by watching one video, or reading a few articles--it’s a lifelong commitment, and so that’s when you would take your privilege as a white person to do more digging before you ask questions to those who have to expel emotional labour to answer them for you (not saying I have any problem answering your question at all, but putting this out there because there are many well meaning white people who I’ve encountered in my comments that do ask me or other BIPOC questions before turning to other resources that wouldn’t require free labour). Take some time to ruminate with this info, and then do some digging of your own. If you haven’t checked out these, these are my favourite anti-racism resources, all of which are free to access (noted otherwise):

Jane Coaston - The Intersectionality wars

A pretty comprehensive place to start with Kimberle Crenshaw’s theory of Intersectionality

Peggy McIntosh - White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

Wonderful place to start in understanding white privilege for those who don’t understand the differences/nuances between race VS class VS gender privilege etc

Article that explores white privilege beyond McIntosh’s ideas

It’s really important that white people also learn the systemic ways in which they benefit from white privilege and not just the “bandaids are made in my skintone” examples (though those examples are often used first because they’re the easiest to understand for a white person who is affected by other intersections, i.e. class, sexuality, gender, who does not feel they are privileged in other ways i.e. race).

Documentary on white privilege (Jane Elliott’s Brown Eyes VS Blue Eyes experiment)

Angela Davis - How Does Change Happen?

bell hooks - Ending Domination: The Struggle Continues

Abena Busia - In Search of Chains Without Iron: On Sisterhood, History, and the Politics of Location

I was able to access this reading through my university but IMO it is a must-read, especially for non-POC who may not fully understand the privilege of whiteness.

Claire Heuchan - Your Silence Will Not Protect You: Racism in the Feminist Movement 

**Absolute must-read: “The theory did not emerge in order to aid white women in their search for cookies – it was developed predominantly by Black feminists with a view to giving women of colour voice (Heuchan).”

Tamela J. Gordon - Why I’m giving up on intersectional feminism 

Powerful perspective on Intersectionality and how it’s been used in white feminism

Jennifer L. Pozner - How to Talk About Racism, Sexism and Bigotry With Your Friends and Family

Really good place to start if you have loved ones in need of education.

Maria Lugones - Playfulness, “World”-Travelling, and Loving Perception

This is the absolute crux of my points in writing empathetically.

"The paper describes the experience of 'outsiders' to the mainstream of, for example, White/Anglo organization of life in the U.S. and stresses a particular feature of the outsider's existence: the outsider has necessarily acquired flexibility in shifting from the mainstream construction of life where she is constructed as an outsider to other constructions of life where she is more or less 'at home.' This flexibility is necessary for the outsider but it can also be willfully exercised by the outsider or by those who are at ease in the mainstream. I recommend this willful exercise which I call "world"-travelling and I also recommend that the willful exercise be animated by an attitude that I describe as playful" (Lugones 3). 

^^^ For writers struggling with the prospect of diversity and trying to find a place to start in what I call in my video "letting go of fear and voraciously welcoming empathy" I highly recommend this article as it is a powerful account of travelling across each other's "worlds". Read it for free with a free JStor account or through your institution, like your public library.

How to BLACK: An Analysis of Black Cartoon Characters

A FANTASTIC video that is an absolute must-watch (covers writing empathetically, writing with care)

If you have not already, read through the sources I used to formulate and argue my thesis in my video (much more detailed than I could do in an hour!):

Corinne Duyvis (ownvoices creator) on # ownvoices

CCBC - "Publishing Statistics on Children's/YA Books about People of Color and First/Native Nations and by People of Color and First/Native Nations Authors and Illustrators"

Hannah Heath - "5 Problems Within the Own Voices Campaign (And How to Fix Them)"

Saadia Faruqi - "The Struggle Between Diversity and Own Voices"

Kat Rosenfield (Refinery29) - "What is # ownvoices doing to our books?"

Lee and Low - "Diversity Baseline Survey 2019 Results"

Vulture - "Who Gave You the Right To Tell That Story"

School Library Journal - "An Updated Look at Diversity in Children's Books"

TL;DR: if you’re more overcome with the fear of offending people (often grounded in white fragility) instead of making the active, albeit sometimes uncomfortable, decision to do the hard work necessary to empathetically represent someone outside of your marginalization in fiction, I don’t think you’re ready to write POC in the nuanced, complex, empathetic ways necessary for good representation, and I would encourage you do more independent anti-racist work. (Note that “you” is not individualistically aimed at the asker!!)

Questions like this don’t necessarily have a clear-cut answer, and that is essentially the point of my video (I know, not super helpful, but I hope that makes sense!).

Hope this helps!

--Rachel

[mprjanedoe]

Statement of Harm & Abuse caused by Steam Powered Giraffe’s former bandmember Michael Philip Reed

I am making this post after reading Steam Powered Giraffe’s recent tweets about Michael and also seeing another tweet circling around from a fan/friend of his as well. This statement is being posted publicly to make the Steam Powered Giraffe fandom and community aware of the breadth of Michael’s harmful actions. Steam Powered Giraffe also tweeted encouraging victims to come forward privately with more information, and because of this I have sent this statement directly to SPG so they are aware of this now as well. 

This post is formed by input from victims, occasionally about each other, and occasionally through observations about themselves directly, that occurred over a span of roughly 10 years, informally through text and private messaging, as well as casual conversation at parties and during socializing. His victims should not be subject to more retraumatizing or identification due to fear of retaliation. Along this vein, I also do not wish to identify myself. Frequently his victims of abuse are non-romantic partners.

Michael and I were friends for a number of years. We became friends when I was 18 and he was 26. During the entirety of our friendship I watched him make friends with young women and notably - minors, as well as pursue relationships with them that blurred the lines of platonic and romantic behavior. I watched him emotionally manipulate multiple young women + minors in their teens he had as friends, often causing animosity between the people he was manipulating, which he then used to his gain whenever confronted on his behavior by scoffing it off as jealousy. Part of the emotional manipulation that contributed to this that I witnessed and was also victim to was a deliberate effort on Michael’s part to be secretive about all of the people in his social group who were in the category of young women and minors, despite all parties involved knowing each other in some way because they knew he was “friends” with them. Michael specifically had no problem chatting about mutual friends who were adults and men - however there was a notably distinct difference when talking about young women/minors. He groomed multiple minors that I knew, engaging in physical affection and romantic/sexual emotional manipulation. In some cases he waited until they legally became an adult to make sexual advances. In others, with victims as young as 15 years old, he did pursue and act upon sexual advances. In case it is not abundantly clear - this is sexual assault and in the context of engaging in sex acts with minors is rape.

Even in the case of victims Michael did not form an ongoing intimate relationship with, Michael was consistently friendly around young women and minors (predominantly met through Steam Powered Giraffe and before and after shows) in inappropriate ways, often openly flirting with them upon meeting them and encouraging them to keep in touch. There were many instances he initiated obtaining direct contact info with fans after meeting them, some he was privy to were minors at the time. I have witnessed this in person, Steam Powered Giraffe has received reports of this, and I have been told this directly by fans and friends of friends who have met him in passing. He regularly held chat rooms with young women and minors and in those chatrooms often made innuendoes and flirty jokes. 

In addition to Michael being manipulative to many young, impressionable people, he was also an irresponsible friend - which in the context of having a social circle filled with young women and minors, was negligent and dangerous. He actively participated in peer pressuring and coaxing his young “friends” into illegal recreational drugs - predominantly psychedelics and alcohol and encouraged friends his age who did those drugs to peer pressure his young companions into these behaviors as well. He not only peer pressured and coaxed his victims into using illegal recreational drugs, but also personally offered them as he had them in his possession. He also would solicit his “friends” to hang out with him at night and drink (most if not all of whom were under 21, so he had to supply the alcohol) and then disappear or offer to let people crash at his place and then rescind his offer last minute. This put his young victims in danger and at risk, especially when under the influence of alcohol. On a number of occasions where I wasn’t directly affected by this, I was one of the people with a car who would pick up our mutual friends left hanging.

As evidenced by another tweet circulating, Michael has also said a number of racist things. He has wallowed in his white guilt openly and unproductively with multiple people of color, seeking comfort and to unburden his conscience. He has frequently made his white guilt a focus and expected emotional labor from POC, and has said some very offensive and distasteful things, like repeatedly saying he wished he was a black man, and that part of that desire was because he felt his music should be sung with a black man’s voice. His wishing to be black is grotesque for a number of reasons: - because he wanted to be absolved of his white guilt without taking any personal action to dismantle white supremacy, and also fetishizing black people as there is no monolithic black voice, black people are all individual and unique and to fixate on an idea of something they may have that he wanted is racist and inappropriate to say the least. He also made comments in front of friends and at parties to a POC he was romantically involved with repeatedly saying this person was white passing enough for him, as he wasn’t normally attracted to women of color. He also boasted to multiple friends that much of his friend group were people of color.

All in all, after years of knowing Michael, seeing his behaviors towards myself and towards others, these very clear statements need to be made. 

1. Michael is a pedophile who has a long history of actively and physically preying on minors and young women. Michael has preyed upon minors and young women, and has coerced minors (under the age of 17) into sexual activity - which is sexual assault and rape. He has calculatedly manipulated young women 5-10 years his junior to be his “friend”, often treating them and implying they were in a relationship, and lying to other people involved, creating an extremely toxic social circle of gaslighted young people being manipulated and abused. He cyclically pulled from this group of individuals one at a time and withheld attention from the others to maintain control and silence of the entire group. This is sexual abuse, in any context. He has used his fame and social capital and his brand of charming and kind dude to make excuses for his behavior and seem like he would never be the type to commit it. When called out on this- he directly lies. Lying about his behavior even when presented with evidence is frequent. 

2. Michael is racist. He has made multiple racist comments to people of color who were close to him over a number of years, he has sought out emotional support for his white guilt without addressing how he should personally fight against racism and white supremacy. He has fetishized people of color and fixated on them. 

Those who have gotten close enough to Michael know that despite his kindhearted exterior, he can be shockingly cold and lash out in very cruel ways unexpectedly. He has done this to every single one of his victims that I’ve known, including myself, and his victims are anticipating the potential that he will retaliate in response to being called out for his actions. Private and informal testimonies from sexual partners and friends of a variety of ages, forms of relationship, and gender indicate severe emotional abuse. 

I would like to acknowledge my role in accountability in this situation for those who may be wondering why I am privy to all of this information but have not spoken out sooner - 18 is not a monolithic age of wizened adulthood - and being that I met Michael when he was nearly 10 years my senior and he pursued friendship with me, I was also taken advantage of for my age and naivety. I was a consistent victim of his emotional manipulation, and felt vaguely uncomfortable for the entirety of knowing and interacting with him, but also personally looked up to him and was charmed by the kindhearted well intentioned image he cultivated both publicly and privately. Upon reading Bunny’s tweets on the matter and reflecting on all that I have been aware of has occurred, it became abundantly clear that it was crucial to make this statement. 

To all who have considered themselves friends and colleagues of Michael’s who are in his age group - do not mislead yourselves that there were no signs of Michael’s behavior. This should’ve been dealt with much swifter than nearly a decade down the line when great irrevocable harm has been dealt to Michael’s victims, and there were many publicly visible signs that Michael was way too close with young people - predominantly young women and minors, even if the deeper grotesque details remained in secrecy. The same things that enticed Michael’s young victims to believe being close to him was safe and exciting, are much of the same signs that should’ve been clear to his peers were deeply inappropriate. Based on Bunny’s tweets regarding Michael getting “too friendly” with young fans, and being caught kissing a minor after a show years ago, it is abundantly clear there was a pattern of harmful predatory behavior that was appropriately investigated enough to stop sooner. I ask that all those who have associated with Michael who were peers of him as adults to reflect on this and take open accountability for their role in enabling his behavior either actively or passively in turning a blind eye and/or not investigating his behavior/personally challenging it.

We are asking that this statement is posted on all of SPG’s public channels for visibility - and that fans spread this information and that Steam Powered Giraffe does everything they can to deplatform and demonetize Michael. We are also asking that there is space for this information to spread and breathe and that things do not immediately or quickly return back to status quo within the Steam Powered Giraffe fandom. People have been seriously impacted by this and the trajectory of the lives of many youths has been altered permanently. Considering Steam Powered Giraffe’s success and fame was integral to giving Michael influence over his victims and the opportunity to meet them in the first place, it is only appropriate that there is a significant period of pause - in respect of the victims, and for those finding out about Michael’s actions to process this information.

[woman-loving]

Stud and Femme Identities in Chicago

Selection from "Black lesbian gender and sexual culture: celebration and resistance," by Bianca D.M. Wilson, published in Culture, Health & Sexuality, Vol. 11, No 3, April 2009.

One of the main questions of the focus group protocol was, ‘Are roles or labels like butch or femme or aggressive or passive important in sex and sexuality? How so or why not?’ This question was eventually rephrased to include the term stud as another term for butch since this was the term most often used by participants to describe masculine gender identities, reflecting ethnic differences in masculine identity terminology in the city. Every focus group chose to devote significant time and energy to answering this question. Participants consistently highlighted lesbian gender roles as a key organizing construct of African American lesbian sexual life. Four participants claimed these labels for themselves. Several other participants supported women’s adoption of these roles. The ways in which participants spoke about stud and femme categories indicated that these ways of constructing lesbian gender were part of an overarching sexual cultural norm of which all were aware. Within every focus group, participants conveyed a sense that the expectation to adopt a label and to operate within the category was a strong message throughout the Black lesbian community. Hence, expectations to be a femme or stud appeared to be a sexual cultural script for this Black lesbian community. Participants indicated that this cultural script was communicated in several contexts, including romantic relationships and community settings. [...]

The deep roots of the social pressure to date within these roles were also evident within my observations at the open mics. Most women that appeared to be coupled off, as evidenced by them kissing or cuddling with each other, were a clear butch and femme couple. Using the language suggested by Moore (2006), only one couple was a ‘gender-blender’ couple. They were a younger couple, maybe in their early twenties, and were each dressed in both feminine and masculine clothing. I did not observe any couple that was composed of two women who were traditionally feminine and observed only one couple in which both were dressed and acted in traditionally masculine ways. An inherent aspect of sexual discourse and cultural scripts are the potential disconnects between expected norms and individual transgressions against those norms (Parker 1991; Schifter and Madrigal 2001). This one masculine-masculine couple appeared to be participating in this type of transgression. Recognizing the discrepancy between their coupling and the cultural sexual scripts expectations, I asked that couple that night whether they had experienced negative reactions to their being a couple in which both women appeared masculine identified. They explained that they had received harsh reactions and lack of understanding from other African American lesbians. However, they felt that they were no longer into labels and loved each other. They had been together for over eight years and people knew them as an established couple so left them alone.

Constructing the dichotomous stud-femme label system With regard to non-sexual roles within romantic relationships, the extreme stud and femme labels carried expectations around partner choices. In particular, femmes are supposed to date studs and vice versa. Focus group participants and my participant observations suggest that there is little tolerance for femmes or studs dating one another. Once choosing a partner of the other lesbian gender, participants mentioned a few relationship roles that each person was expected to fill. Participants within several groups talked about being with a stud or femme partner who was disappointed that they would not follow the ‘rules’ of lesbian gendering. For example, Dalia indicated that she was expected to act more ‘mannish’ in her gestures when she was with a femme partner (FG3). Another participant, who was partnered with someone who identified as a hard stud, in turn expected her partner not to cry in order to live up to the masculine image (FG4, Cynthia). Similarly, participants who were with partners that were studs were expected to act in certain ways to be considered good femmes, such as in the case of Bré who reported that she was expected to sleep on the inside of the bed in order to be protected (FG7). The expectations and tendencies to date within a stud-femme dyad participants reported were very similar to those reported in Moore’s (2006) study of New York Black lesbians, suggesting Black lesbian cultural script that spans the boundaries of one city. [...]

Masculine expression Lesbians who expressed a highly masculinised gender were labelled ‘hard studs’ and hard studs had relatively strict guidelines for sexual practice. For example, participants talked about the, ‘hard studs that will come out and say, ‘‘I don’t want my woman to touch me. I want to be the total pleaser’’’ (FG2, Leslie). Contrasting femmes and hard studs, another participant claims:

“… because studs mostly in traditional situations, they’re usually the one who initiates, they’re usually the one, who, if you have oral sex, they usually the one who would initiate having oral sex on that particular person, when they want, on a femme. I know a lot of studs. They don’t like to be touched to a certain point, you know, you can touch them in certain places, but you know, you can’t really touch them like on, on their, you know, vagina or so things that may make them feel feminine.” (FG5. Jay)

These participants’ descriptions of the hard stud with which they were familiar is similar to the stone butch described in the fictional autobiography of Feinberg’s (1993) ‘Stone Butch Blues’ and discussed in Halberstam’s (1998) critique of the tendency to pathologize the stone butch in her book Female Masculinity. As such, it is possible that the language of hard stud is an ethnic-specific term that denotes a lesbian gender category identified in other ethnic communities. While a few participants who identified themselves as either aggressive, tomboy or dominant volunteered that they usually or rarely allowed partners to penetrate them, it is important to note that focus group participants were not asked to describe their own sexual lives. Hence, data from this study cannot confirm or disconfirm the extent to which these ‘hard’ or ‘stone’ sexual scripts resonated with the sexual practice of the women in the study.

Illustrating how hard stud sexual scripts were understood by many Black lesbians in the community, two primary reasons were provided by participants for why hard studs would demand that they not be touched during sex. One explanation was that hard studs were not comfortable with the parts of their bodies that defined them as female, mainly their breasts and vaginas. As such, a successful performance of the ‘male’ role during sex required that the hard stud’s female body parts not be touched. Another reason concerned the meaning of being touched and seduced. That is, participants talked about the importance of maintaining the appearance of dominance in the sexual act for hard studs and how being touched sexually or being the ‘bottom’ took away that sense of dominance and control. The vulnerability of being sexually aroused and pleasured threatened the image of the dominant sexual partner. The contrast between these two explanations is significant. The first explanation, rejecting femaleness, is similar to the comments made by some transgender people regarding discomfort with their biological body parts that dictate mainstream society’s current gendering system. However, the second explanation, maintaining dominance, is not about denying one’s femaleness as expressed through the body but instead about accepting a view that being sexually pleasured and aroused by another makes a person vulnerable. Being vulnerable does not fit with the hegemonic masculine image and, hence, does not fit with the image of a true stud.

This study was designed to examine sexual discourses – essentially, how Black lesbians discussed sex and what cultural level sexual scripts were recognized in the community. While examining conflicts between cultural level norms and individual behaviour was not the aim of the current study, some participants noted that there is some evidence of transgressions. Participants in two focus groups (FG1 and FG9) discussed studs they knew who had recently had vaginal sex with men and had children, behaviours that did not fit into the masculine lesbian gender identity role. It is quite likely that many studs and many ultra-femmes engaged in sexual behaviour that transgressed expected community norms (beyond the mainstream norms they already transgress through sexual orientation and gender presentation), as was found in a study of the level of congruence between butch global presentation and actual self-presentation in sexual settings within a predominantly White sample (Rosenzweig and Lebow 1992).

Feminine expression Within the masculine/feminine dichotomy that was discussed by participants, there were also the pillow princesses and ultra femmes at the other end of the lesbian gender spectrum. Similar to the hard stud category, these extreme femme labels have clear sexual behaviour roles. In this study ‘Ultra femme’ was a label given to women who expressed themselves in high-fashion feminine ways, usually including heels, make-up and contouring or revealing clothing. Relevant to the current study, ‘pillow princess’ was a special label for the ultra femme that alluded to the sexual context. In particular, this label described a lesbian who prefers to be the receiver of sexual pleasure and acts, such as having oral sex performed on her. She is not expected or likely to perform any sexual acts on her partner. In a sexual encounter, the expectation is that ultra femmes are the ones that will be vaginally penetrated with sex toys or fingers. While not all participants spoke to the relationship between sexual penetration and femme identities, one group agreed that a requirement to being labelled femme was that an individual liked penetration (FG1). It is notable that outside of acknowledging that this role may be a little selfish, no pathology related to body image or gender identity was ascribed to the role of pillow princess. In general, it was the role of hard stud that engendered the most resistance, as will be described in the next section.

Debate within the community about lesbian gender As Burch (1998) has noted, some activists and theorists argue that the adoption of femme and stud roles and labels is an attempt to replicate the gendered sexual norms in which lesbians were raised in the mainstream heterosexual society. Several community leaders and focus group participants thought similarly. For example, in FG7, Wanda talked about the differences between White and Black lesbians that she saw:

“They are, and not just Whites, but [also] other non-African American lesbians see it as we are just two women that love each other. Whereas Blacks say we are two women that love each other, however we do have roles. You know, and we are trying to in a sense maybe ascribe to a heterosexual way of life, or way of operating, in our relationship.” (FG7)

Similarly, one of the community leaders whose work focused on sexuality and spirituality, Vicki, discussed her own experiences with previously claiming a butch identity. She indicated that letting go of this identity represented seeing it for what it was, a replication of heterosexuality. Kendra, another community leader who works in lesbian and gay health arenas, also reported that she felt that femme and butch labels appear to mimic traditional gender roles. However, she cautioned against the assumption that mimicking traditional gender roles automatically made lesbian gender label expression ‘artificial’. That is, many African American lesbians genuinely feel masculine or feminine and are truly attracted to ‘opposite’ lesbian gendered women. Nonetheless, these same women who identify as butch or femme are sometimes frustrated with the strict rules regarding these labels and identities.

In contrast, one focus group participant, Gail, who identified as femme and as a member of the ‘butch-femme community’, also conveyed to the group that there was a renaissance in the butch-femme movement that included reconfiguring butch and femme to mean more than a replication of heterosexual gender roles. She felt that contemporary butch-femme communities were more egalitarian than they had been when she was younger, where femmes were no longer placed in a subservient or domestic role. Some scholars have argued that femme and stud labels do not attempt to replicate heterosexist norms, but serve as mechanisms for de-gendering gendered lines by claiming masculinity in women’s bodies. The butch lesbian in particular functioned as ‘images to contradict the prevailing image of female sexuality as passive or even nonexistent’ (Burch 1998, 361). However, this argument suggests that lesbians who adopt lesbian gender labels do so as a political statement. While a masculine identity may operate as a radical rejection of traditional female expectations, no data from this study suggest that the adoption of lesbian gender labels among African American lesbians was intended to be a purposeful and political affront to mainstream gender expectations.

Despite the large role that lesbian gender played in organizing Black lesbian sexual life, every focus group discussion revealed individuals’ (within the group or people known by group participants) conscious and purposeful rejection of femme and stud labels/roles. There were several strategies used to reject the femme and stud categories within African American lesbian communities: refusing to label oneself; feeling bothered by labels; feeling hopeful that the cultural scripts will change; and avoiding hanging out with people who like labels. [...] [S]ome participants refused the labels for themselves and also expressed being bothered or irritated with the community trend to adopt labels. However, they also conveyed acceptance or tolerance for those that chose the labels. Further, the comments made by Tracey in FG6 indicate that the choice to refuse labels for oneself is not incongruent with having an attraction to women who possess the characteristics those labels define.

In contrast, other focus group participants expressed rejection or avoidance of femme and stud identified women. As discussed above, Gail was a participant who had previously avoided Black gay spaces because she had experienced butch-femme culture as oppressive, but then later came to adopt a femme identity. In contrast, the two other participants in her same group expressed strong negative judgments of the lesbian gender labels, particularly those expressed by stud or butch women. In particular, Anna evaluated masculine identified women in this way by making racial identity confusion analogous to masculine expression (e.g. scratching your crotch) among women:

“…if I walked around saying, ‘I’m White, so please address me as such’ I think I’d have a mental problem. If I walk around as a woman … and I’m scratching something I don’t have, I also see that as a slight mental deficiency.” (FG8) [...]

Between the extremes Despite a consistent description of femme and stud at the extremes of lesbian gender expression, participants also discussed several labels that fell between the ultra femme-hard stud ends of the continuum, such as ‘soft stud’ and ‘aggressive femme’. Labels like these represented lesbians that blended both masculine and feminine ways in their public expression and/or sexual behaviours, but with a purposeful leaning toward more masculine or feminine identity. The use of these terms appears contrary to the reports that there were dominant expectations of highly masculine or highly feminine modes of expression. Yet, the sets of sexual discourses that comprise a group’s sexual culture are inherently contradictory and often disjointed from one another (Schifter and Madrigal 2001). There was a collective acknowledgment that dominant sexual discourses in Black lesbian communities emphasized an expectation for choosing identities representing opposite sides of a single feminine-masculine continuum. Yet, this expectation did not prevent the existence of informal, less dominant sexual scripts that created room for blending characteristics along both masculine and feminine continua.

One of the community leader interviewees, Kendra, suggested that the mere presence of these alternative labels was evidence of a loosening of the hold that the traditional conceptualization of lesbian gender had on African American lesbians in Chicago. She asserted that the creation of new labels is one form of resistance to the strict dichotomy of stud and femme that arose out of the ‘old school’ African American lesbian sexual culture and provides more freedom for people to act in various ways and date different types of people. In this way, the development and adoption of more labels, and thus more roles and conceptualizations, could represent a quasi-organized movement towards changing the current gendered sexual discourse among Black lesbians.

Another core feature of sexual discourses, particularly those that are more formal (i.e. explicit) and dominant, is that they engender resistance (Schifter and Madrigal 2001). It was in the theme of lesbian gender that forms of resistance were most evident. As noted above, resistance strategies ranged from individual choices to not identify with femme or stud roles, to open rejection of other lesbians who chose those identities. Additionally, some Black lesbians discussed the adoption of labels that represented a blend of feminine and masculine traits which simultaneously embraced preferences for gendered ways of relating sexually and romantically and rejected strict rules for lesbian gender roles. Most of the resistance discussed centred on disagreements with the concepts of prescribed roles in romantic and sexual relationships. In cases where the frustration was directed specifically at those who identified with the labels, the discontent was with masculine women, not the femmes. This theme has been observed in other work documenting the experiences of Black studs and agressives (Moore 2006). This is notable because it indicates that resistance against femme-stud lesbian gender expression is not an unqualified rejection of all Black lesbians who express themselves in gendered ways. The Black lesbians in this study who disagreed with lesbian gender roles were not arguing for a movement toward the androgynous images that characterize many White lesbian communities (Taylor and Rupp 1993). Instead, the resistance is centred on the rejection of masculine women, studs, who dare to transgress the mainstream cultural expectations for proper female expression as well as a possible mainstream Black women’s cultural expectations of women to operate somewhere between gender-blending and feminine expression.

A radical side to lesbian gender sex roles The butch/stud and femme phenomenon as discussed by study participants also represents a shift from traditional notions of masculine and feminine expressions of sexuality, even though these views were not labelled as forms of resistance by participants. Though many focus group participants, community leaders and poets at the open mics argued that studs and femme roles were replications of heterosexual male and female sexual relationships, the sexual scripts for hard studs and pillow princesses appear to turn the traditional conceptualization of fe/male sex roles on its head. Heterosexual men may be expected to be the sexual aggressors (as studs were described to be by participants), but they are typically not socialized to view sexual pleasure of their female partner as the primary outcome. For example, in her historical analysis of the invention of the vibrator, Maines (1999) identified three steps of sex within the dominant US cultural script for sexuality: (1) foreplay or preparation for penetration; (2) penile intercourse; and (3) male orgasm. This type of sex is regarded as the ‘real thing’ in popular US culture. In contrast to this dominant script, masculine identified stud women prioritized the feminine partner’s orgasm. Similarly, whereas pillow princesses and other femmes appear to fall in line with heterosexual conceptualizations of sexual roles for women, where the woman’s role is the passive and non-assertive partner, they represent radical departures in other respects. In particular, participants indicated that ultra femmes and pillow princesses fully expected that the sexual act ended with their sexual climax. This appears to be a re-conceptualization of the connection between femininity and sexual prowess, deeming the feminine partner as the primary physical beneficiary. In essence, the feminine partner can be viewed as receptive, rather than passive (Burch 1998).

[lastsonlost]

This looks like one of those stories that makes me wonder if I'm going to lose friends.

Jillian Graham, aka Detroit-based rapper Tiny Jag, pulled out of a local music festival this week because she disagreed with its pay model, in which people of color would pay less for tickets than white festivalgoers.

Graham said she only found out about AfroFuture Fest's pay model when a white friend reached out to her and sent her a screenshot via Instagram that outlined the pay difference. The early bird POC ("people of color") ticket was $10 while the early bird "non-POC" ticket cost $20.

"I was immediately enraged just because I am biracial," Graham tells Metro Times. "I have family members that would have, under those circumstances, been subjected to something that I would not ever want them to be in ... especially not because of anything that I have going on."

Graham says after the festival confirmed the price structure, she immediately withdrew from the event and requested that she be removed from any promotional materials. She says because she had publicly supported the festival without knowing about the discrepancy between the ticket prices, that she had to publicly withdraw her support as well. She did so by taking to Twitter. 

She indicated feeling very triggered, and discussed how the pay model would have affected her family personally — specifically her grandmother.

"A lot of the songs that I perform are from my first project called Polly — that is my grandmother’s name," Graham says. "How do you want me to come to a performance and perform these songs off a mixtape that is titled after this white woman that you would have charged double to get in here? Like, it’s just outrageous from so many different angles."

The discussion comes at a time when wealthy white people have been moving into Detroit, a predominantly Black city. It also comes at a time when lawmakers are discussing reparations. Last month, House Democrats prepared the first-ever hearing on the subject. Detroit Rep. Rashida Tlaib was a co-sponsor of H.R.40: The Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act.

Graham says that while she is definitely  for the goal of putting equity back into the Black community, she doesn’t agree with the method being used to do so.

"It’s non-progressive and it’s not solution-focused in my eyes," she says. "It seems almost like it has spite, and unfortunately with spite comes hate, and that’s just not obviously going to be a good direction for us to go if we’re looking for POSITIVE CHANGES."

Graham says it was difficult to pull out of the festival because she appreciates the support of her fans.

"It’s not fun to withdraw out of shows, especially at home, especially in your hometown, and especially when your supporters have been so good to you," she says. "It’s also not fun to do that to my fellow Black women, like that sucks too. It sucks that this is a thing that’s put a wedge here."

While the festival organizers declined MT's request for comment, they explained their rationale behind the ticket prices on the festival's Eventbrite page:

I have always lived by the rule of treat others the way YOU WANT TO BE TREATED PERIOD.

[spydcrbyte]

You know what , I’m about to say it. .

I no longer roleplay and I haven’t done so since 2017 — but I spent 3-4 years of my life roleplaying everyday doing so on a regular schedule. I don’t know if that gives me room or a say so. . but I feel like these anons are pressing this issue between you and good sis @riconsty so hard for a reason they’re not disclosing to y’all and it’s rubbing me wrong. I think see it like this . . if something is an exclusively black space , or somewhere that is specifically catering to an black audience why would a non-black poc , minority or a white person even remotely feel comfortable joining or imposing on that ? Like. Theres a reason you have to search ‘ urban rp ‘ ‘ urban rpg ‘ and use specific tags to find the things that are particularly for us as a people. The second you step out of those tags . . you will immediately notice that these people have their spaces and their communities. You will notice that most of the roleplay world is WHITE or not black. You will notice ‘ k-rps ‘ and ‘ ___ rp ‘ because they have their communities and audiences. That’s why there had to be an ‘ urban rp ‘ tag in the first place. There’s a difference in the usage of a fc of another race than your own when you’re a black person. You see enough representation and media on white people and non-black POC , aapi people in everyday life. You have a great and extensive scope of their experience. . but you if you’re not a black person behind these black characters . . portraying the black experience you most likely know nothing about , in a predominantly black community . . it’s just like whats the point ? I don’t see the point. This is a BLACK space. That’s like seeing a white person attend an HBCU. HBCU’s were founded because of black people being denied the right of entry to certain schools and establishments. Our people weren’t supposed to get an education because so and so said they don’t wanna go to school with them ? No. So throw it back to 2012/2011 roleplay era. . black people weren’t supposed to roleplay and engage because these oc and cannon rps wouldn’t accept black muses and face claims ? That’s literally apart of the principle the urban roleplay community was founded on.

I don't want to ramble and take away from the points you are making, and I know the same thing is being said a lot so I'll say it again. How you feel is 100% valid and a shared sentiment of so many others, and yes not everybody feels like this, but everybody's voice within our communities matter. So whether you agree with this fully, partially, or not at all it still needs to be respected regardless. She said what she said, friends.

[theliterateape]

The Orwellian DoubleSpeak of Anti-

by Don Hall

Everybody's talking at me I don't hear a word they're saying Only the echoes of my mind People stopping, staring I can't see their faces Only the shadows of their eyes — Harry Nilsson

Upon the road to Damascus I encountered a Christian.

He smiled. "Have you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior, friend?"

I smiled back. "No. I was in to all that when I was younger but have found that the societal constructs that surround that belief system don't make much sense to me."

He stopped smiling. "So you are anti-Christ?"

"No. Not anti-Christ. Just not pro-Christ, I guess."

He launched into an increasingly angry monologue. Highlights of this polemic were a few simple concepts. If I wasn't pro-Christianity then I was, by his definition, against it. By refusing to see and capitulate to his faith, I was his enemy. By not joining him in his beliefs, I was actively denying them.

I decided to walk on, his taunts and rage following me for a half mile before he got tired of yelling.

✶

Upon the road to Starbucks along Clark Street in Chicago I encountered a Cubs fan.

He smiled. "How about them Cubbies, huh?"

"I smiled back. "I don't really follow sports. Not my thing."

"So you hate the Cubs? Why do you hate the Cubs? Are you one of those fair-weather fans or what? Motherfucker!" He spit on me as he stormed off.

✶

Upon the road to Circa on Fremont Street in Las Vegas I encountered a transgender woman.

She smiled. I smiled and continued walking.

"What? Are you fucking transphobic or what? What's your fucking problem?

I turned. "I don't know what you're getting pissed about. All I did was smile."

"But I could tell. You're transphobic, right?"

"No. Not transphobic."

"You didn't even ask for my pronouns!"

"Oh. I don't really care what your pronouns are because I don't know you. It seems you assume I'll be talking about you to someone. Otherwise, your pronouns are irrelevant to me."

"TRANSPHOBE!" she screamed and pointed. She collapsed on the cement walkway. "I can't take the micro aggressions!"

✶

The further into the tribal mindset we submerge ourselves into in America, the less likely we are able to communicate effectively.

I recall, years ago, as I was directing the very popular series of DADA Soirées in Chicago, realizing that the nonsense poetry and onstage chaos required a certain set of rules the DADAists needed to grasp onto lest the shows become a bunch of poorly improvised faux-German moments.

Each DADAist performed nonsense poems but I directed them to have each poem mean something that they are trying to communicate to the audience but the audience doesn't understand the language and thus cannot receive the meaning. It made the characters of the DADAists frustrated and angry and made the show increasingly confrontational.

We're now entering the DADAist stage of American dysfunction as we are all desperately trying to communicate ideas to others who simply aren't using the same language. It sounds the same but meanings are changing and it fuels more frustration and anger and results in an almost non-stop confrontation.

✶

Ricky Gervais, on a radio talkshow, makes a point that racism is horrible but, in his opinion, it is the intent that makes it racist rather than the reception. "That's why," he added,"wearing blackface is racist but wearing a mud mask is not."

The caller rejects this and claims that Gervais is practicing white supremacy. He continues to tell Gervais that racism and white supremacy are the same thing which Ricky disputes. They talk over each other until one of the hosts get frustrated and dismisses the caller as being completely full of shit.

✶

As used in 1984, doublethink is the ability to hold two completely contradictory thoughts simultaneously while believing both of them to be true. In Orwell's book, doublethink was critical to the success of the Party as it supported the state-imposed practice of language control, or newspeak.

Our new version of doublethink proliferates itself as different tribes redefine ideas and intentionally confuse communication.

How bizarre that when cops kill people, we blame cops but when 108 people are shot in Chicago over the July 4th weekend, we blame the guns. Which is it? The doublethink holds that both are true with no explanation. It's either guns or the people or perhaps a far more complicated cocktail of reasons that include cops, criminals, poverty, and the proliferation of guns but, fuck, isn't that too many problems to solve so let's simplify it down to cops and guns are bad, criminals have excuses, and what the fuck does this all mean?

How malfunctioning is it that for half the U.S. population cancel culture means holding the powerful accountable but for the other half it means online bullying to punish people for stupid things they did or said 20 years ago. For every Weinstein there is a Franken, for every Louis C.K. there is a James Gunn.

"Equality" is now "equity" but only for 50% of the country. For a tiny but increasingly vocal bunch the term "mother" has been replaced with "birthing person". "Riots" are "protests" or "rebellions" unless you are on the other side of the issue. Blacks who marched on the Capitol with the predominantly white mob are now considered to be suffering from "multicultural whiteness."

Even Orwell would've had a hard time imagining this bullshit.

✶

We are not speaking the same language between tribes these days. There has to be common understanding of usable terms and insisting upon preferred definitions only makes it more difficult to communicate. No communication, no unity of purpose. No unity of purpose, no society.

For me, given my completely unexceptional position in society, I will go with the definitions I prefer and do my best to be respectful of the lunacy of others.

No matter what you call elbow pasta with cheese sauce, it's still Mac n Cheese. And bullshit is bullshit even if you want to have it identify as stroganoff.

[action]

Women’s History Month Spotlight: Kawther Inuwa

This Women’s History Month Spotlight features Nigerian activist Kawther Inuwa. Inuwa works by instigating conversations around women’s rights and empowerment, humanitarian issues, Islamophobia, and racism. You’ll want to read more about her in our interview below.

Let’s start with you telling us a little bit about yourself. 

My name is Kawther, I’m from Nigeria, and I am currently a first-year university student. Reading and writing are two of my most predominant passions, and for the longest time, I have been in love with the art of writing as a means to create worlds beyond boundaries and educate and inspire the masses. I truly believe that as the the younger generation, we need to learn to be socially, culturally and politically aware of not only our immediate environments but also on a global scale. Hence, I encourage my peers to entertain their curiosity and thirst for knowledge, whether it’s through poetry, art, novels, documentaries, podcasts, the Internet, books, etc.

Why do you think it’s important for people to understand the experiences of Black Muslim women?

Solely being born a woman, one is undoubtedly sure to face sexism in a number of settings; at home, school, workplaces. Yet, being born a Black woman, the discrimination we face is twofold, and in environments where Islamophobic attitudes run rampant, Black Muslim women are inundated with triple the prejudice, and their basic identity is the target of unjustified attacks. Within a number of Muslim communities, religious and cultural values and beliefs are wrongly interchanged, and so while Islam in no way endorses racial prejudice, certain cultures that practice Islam do. This can negatively impact Black Muslim women within those communities, wherein their blackness is believed to make them inferior to their non-Black counterparts.

Moreover, when we observe attitudes towards Black Muslim women in parts of the globe that are not predominantly Muslim, the discriminatory patterns that emerge are appalling. Primarily, institutional racism is an obstacle placed in the path of success for all Black women, barring them from landing jobs or getting into their dream schools, for example. Yet, due to the misconceived belief that anyone who practices Islam promotes violence, Muslim women are on many occasions turned down from jobs they are highly qualified for and rejected from schools they should have been accepted into. Job opportunities and acceptance letters have slipped through the fingers of Black women due to the blackness of their skin and the nature of their curls, so just imagine how many Black Muslim women have experienced the same.

This is why I think it’s so important for us to see Black Muslim women knocking down society’s cunningly placed impediments to their success, and shattering the stereotype of Muslim women as docile creatures. It definitely instills a feeling of pride within me to know that Black Muslim girls out there have such inspiring figures to look up to.

How can we educate and advocate for people to be allies to the Muslim community?

Religious extremism has unfortunately become a prevalent headline within the 21st Century, perpetuating the false notion that Islam is a religion of terror. In addition, when certain aspects of the media repeatedly insinuate that the terms “Muslim” and “terrorism” are synonymous, all this does is fuel the religious intolerance Muslims are subjected to on a daily basis. Like I mentioned before, education can make the greatest difference. Rather than condemn an entire faith for the actions of a group of individuals who practice said faith, take a moment to gather all the facts before jumping to conclusions.

The misperceptions surrounding the Islamic faith are extensive. Therefore, being an ally to Muslim communities worldwide can only begin once those misperceptions have been clarified. And I really believe that there is no better way to do so than by initiating conversations with Muslims.  The saying goes that “ignorance is bliss”, but I beg to differ. Ignorance breeds bigotry and pure, unadulterated hate. The inception of a discourse between Muslims and non-Muslims will allow those on varying ends of the religious spectrum to realize that the Islamic faith denounces all forms of brutality and discrimination against any human being, and will shed light on the fact that Islam champions women’s rights, debunking the fallacy that Islam is a faith that supports misogynistic views.

We couldn’t be more thankful for Kawther Inuwa taking her time to educate the masses. To see more from her, please visit her website. 

[romolite]

*Important FAQ*

Aka questions that pertain to what I usually post about or stuff I don’t like getting asks about but continue to get asks about regardless.

[Insert any invasive question about my ethnicity/race]

I’m Ghanaian American. My parents were born in Ghana and I was born here in the US. I’ve seen it more on twitter and tumblr, but Black Africans don’t like me because I’m American, and black Americans don’t like me because I’m African. So I’m stuck in the middle lmao. I’m what you’d consider a First-Generation African, my parents are Continental Africans, and if I have children, they will be considered Generational African Americans.

First Generation African: A black person born in the US to parents who were born in Africa

Generational African American: A black person born in the US to US-born black parent(s)

Continental African: A black person born in Africa to parents who were also born in Africa

Non is just a prefix, black people don’t have a monopoly on the term! I suppose you think nonbinary people are racist huh?

Yeah sure it wasnt coined by black people but the context it’s currently used as was predominantly used by black people. ALL people who are not black benefit from and contribute to antiblackness, even if they are marginalized themselves. That kind of dynamic doesnt exist in other contexts (unless we’re talking about transfem + transmisogyny, but that’s something you’d have to talk to someone who is transfem about. Plus they have their own word for  “non-transfem”). Using it in contexts outside of antiblackness is appropriative (Yall are annoying as fuck with the “non-aspec” “non-lesbian”(this term also has anti-bi roots btw) “non-bi” shit etc, stop it. You also can’t complain about the “replacement terms” lumping yall with oppressors when “non-x” does the exact same thing you’re so worried about. “Cis” puts cis gays with cis hets, cis disabled people with cis abled people, cis white people with cis poc, I could go on.) 

Plus we’re talking about marginalized groups here. Black people are a marginalized group. Binary people as a whole are not so the term nonbinary isn’t appropriate at all.  I dont take issue with terms like “nonamerican” or “nonwhite” because (obviously) whites + americans as a whole aren’t oppressed for being white or american.

Basically using "non-x” in contexts to talk about oppression bad, everything else good.

Follow up: If we can’t use non-[marginalized group], what can we use instead?

There are other words to describe the people you’re talking about

non-transfem- TME

non-LGBT- cishet, or people who aren’t LGBT

non-trans - cis

Black people don’t have a monopoly on the acronym nb! I’ll call myself nb if I want to!

At this point I dont really care, go on your antiblack crusade elsewhere and out of my inbox, I’m always gonna mean nonblack when I use the acronym nb. 

And yes, you’re antiblack as fuck if you think black people telling you “nb” stands for “nonblack” is the same as exclusionists claiming “aspec” is for autistic people.

Is x AAVE?

I have a tag dedicated to what is and is not aave and how harmful it is for nonblacks to use aave given its history. I know some things overlap with southern culture but others are specifically for black people. A lot of “stan twitter” language/slang is just repackaged AAVE. No, I can’t tell you how to stop using AAVE. Don’t tell me you’re going to try to stop using AAVE, I don’t want to hear it.

Why don’t you like the n-word being compared to LGBT slurs?

Race and Sexuality/Gender aren’t comparable topics because each deals with a different history of oppression. I don’t care about slur discourse that much because I don’t even use/reclaim any myself except the n-word.

I have a problem with nonblack LGBT people co-opting black culture and struggle(like they always do), especially for trivial online discourse.

And to be honest it goes deeper than slur discourse. Every other day someone is weaponizing the oppression of black trans women, or comparing “cishet aces/aros” in the LGBT community to white/nonblack people invading black spaces (you know, something that ACTUALLY takes resources away from the people who need it, see the cultural appropriation of Black African and Blac American culture in literally any nonblack community while black people get demonized for said culture), or tokenizing their black friends to get away with something blatantly racist. And that’s not even getting into how a lot of gay slang/stan culture is just repurposed AAVE/black culture.

And I’m not gonna lie, I’ve seen this more with exclusionist accounts than inclus accounts, but it’s still not excusable for inclus to do that either. We get erased as black gay/trans/queer/aspec people up until it’s time for discourse accounts to bring us up to one-up each other

Can you give me advice on x?

Most likely not, because I’m not an expert or an advice blog. I’ll try, but don't take my word for it. I’m also tme, able-bodied, not Jewish, singlet, etc, so I’m not able to accurately answer questions about transmisogyny, (physical?) ableism, antisemitism, “sycourse”, etc.

I might be able to give advice on school-related stuff since I just graduated high school, but remember that students are not a monolith, and what worked for me may not work for someone else.

Can I follow if I’m nonblack/a minor/cishet?

Nonblack and/or cishet can follow but watch your step, minors blacklist the #minors dni tag before following

Why do you hate Ao3?

*long sigh*

I don't, I have a problem with the fact that it allows racist and (frankly voyeuristic) pedophilic/abusive/incestuous content to exist on its platform. It’s a good concept overall, but the devs are complicit in allowing “underage” and “noncon/dubcon” fics on their platform.

And there's the fact that they somehow need donations every year despite exceeding their goal several times over each year?

What’s wrong with Hazbin Hotel/The Ships/Vivziepop?

[WIP, as I have to go into extensive detail about this and I currently don’t have the energy for it]

TLDR: Viv made a half-assed apology for supporting racists (one of whom did blackface [yes the mask was used to do blackface shut up] to mock black activist) and drawing gross content. Her current projects including Hazbin Hotel are full of anti-gay/trans/aspec (Angel Dust, Vaggie, Alastor), antisemetic (Mimzy), and racist (Vaggie again, that yellow cyclops character that I’ve forgotten the name of) content under the guise of humor. If you’re into that shit, whatever, just don’t follow me and don’t whine when I make posts criticizing it.

What’s wrong with Hamilton?

Aside from the fact that it’s very obviously glorifying slave owners and made people worldwide believe the founding fathers were good people, LMM, the creator, is nonblack. This isn't his story to tell at all. 

Can you tag x?

I have a list of things I usually tag because they come upon this blog a lot. I cannot do catch all tags, as I have way too many followers for that. The closest thing to that is the “ask to tag” tag when there’s something potentially triggering but I’m not sure what it is. Everything is tagged as “x tw”. If something is extremely triggering, I’ll tag it as “major tw”

Do you tag slurs?

I tag slurs I’m not able to reclaim at all (i.e., d slur, f slur, t slur) or slurs I can reclaim but are being used as a slurs. I don’t tag the n-word, as I reclaim that one. I always tag the r slur

Can I message you about something/someone?

Unless you’re a mutual, most likely no. My DMs are only open to mutuals.

Do you want to be mutuals?

I don’t usually follow back people who follow me, especially if you’re under 16 or post things I’m not interested in.

Why is it important to have byf or about?

1) So I know gross people aren’t following me. This is not up for discussion

2) So I know someone’s not speaking out of their lane, which tends to happen a lot. (i.e, someone refusing to disclose that they are tme when discussing transmisogyny, someone not having their race listed when discussing racism)

3) Some people don’t want to interact with people under 18 or over like 30 or something.

Yeah, yeah, people aren’t entitled to personal information and all that crap but I have a serious problem with people speaking on topics from a place of privilege. Not to say they can’t talk about those things, just perhaps add a disclaimer that you’re privileged when talking about these things and be open to criticism, and NOT blocking people of the said marginalized group when they tell you something you’ve said was problematic.

I also have a problem with people who are intentionally vague about their age. There’s a difference between interacting with someone who’s 20 and someone who’s 29. I don’t want to say it’s the opposite for minors but at the same time there’s a difference for saying something racist at 13 and doing so at 17, and keeping your age vague makes it harder to determine how to deal with something like that. (Not that 13-year-olds shouldn’t know better, it’s just I don’t feel whole ass callout posts and receipt blogs are necessary for someone of that age).

Also anyone under 16, I can't stop you from following, but keep your interaction limited, please. This isnt an 18+ blog but I do rb suggestive jokes from time to time

I sent you an ask and you never answered it!

It’s likely that

I never got it

You were blocked

I’ve already answered this or it’s been answered in my faq

It’s a random positivity ask (which I appreciate but not sure how to respond to those)

You were rude in your ask and I didn’t feel like answering

I forgot until it was too late, which happens when my inbox gets a lot of asks at a time.

You sent it to the wrong blog (I.e, sending asks about my ocs to this blog instead of @ochood )

Hey, the op is [insert post] is [someone on my dni]! I usually double-check myself, just to be sure.

Have you heard about [someone who is mutuals with someone I’m loosely connected with]?

Most likely, no. And unless they’re an immediate danger to someone or they’ve got my name in their mouth, I don’t care.

Do you know who [x person/group/thing] is?Most likely no. Not to sound like a hipster but I don't usually keep up to date with trends. If I do hear about something, it’s most likely from twitter or Instagram.

Why am I blocked? Check here.

Why do you continuously move mains/change URLs/update themes?

I’m inconsistent. And sometimes there are posts on my blog that I no longer stand by.

Can I tag you in posts I think I’d like?Of course! 

[lightningstruckitselfrp]

CREATURES

Below the cut you can find essential information on the creatures available in play. The alignments written underneath the creature categories are how this creature is generally perceived by the wider wixen world and are not necessarily indicative of that creature’s personal alignment. 

Faery - chaotic evil / chaotic neutral

The fairies that remain are a mere shade of their former power and glory. They reside in small villages hidden by magic and accessible only through portals in fairy forts, fairy rings, and hawthorne trees. With their connection to their homeland has been severed, the fairies have lost their dominion over life and death, which means that they have also lost their immortality. A natural-born fairy lives an average of five-hundred years before crumbling to dust and scattering to the wind. However, this number seems to decrease with every passing generation. 

Instead, some have mastered a darker and more nefarious way of living indefinite lifespans. Through ancient and mysterious ritualistic magic, fairies are able to move between different living hosts. They do not have a concept of “good” or “bad,” and believe in taking what they believe belongs to them and spreading their goodwill for a price.

Part-Faery - chaotic neutral, neutral evil

The children of fairies and humans are rarely born out of love. Instead, they are born with purpose. For generations, fairies have used their part-fairy children as hosts for themselves in order to expand their lifespan past the natural expiry. This means that, despite being able to live for one to two hundred years, many only live to their early twenties before they are made hosts. 

However, this is not the only fate for part-fairy children. Some live out the extent of their lives without interruption or loss of self. This can be for a number of reasons: the death of the fairy parent, a part-fairy child taking control of a fairy parent via silver, the successful escape from a fairy parent, or simply because they were one of the few part-fairy children born out of love or favoured by their fairy parent. 

Ghost - varied alignment

A ghost is a timeless imprint of the dead; a visible but transparent, silvery specter resembling the wix who has died. The “lifespan” of a ghost is indeterminate, but it is often reflective of the strength of their connection to certain locations, people and objects, to their fear of the afterlife, or to the trauma of their death. Muggles cannot become ghosts. 

Many ghosts will cease to exist if their “unfinished business” is resolved, albeit not all spirits have this luxury (or this desire): Some spirits are more fractured than others, with these apparitions existing as only a warped, partial reflection of their former selves. Others are simply too afraid to part with what little life they have left. It is rumored that some ghosts have been ‘recruited’ by the Department of Mysteries for experimentation. Ghosts are able to fly and produce ectoplasm, but are unable to perform magic. 

Part-Giant - neutral evil

The rare progeny of one human parent and one Giant parent, part-Giants are humanoid in appearance, if considerably taller than most humans, and have slightly longer lifespans than the average wix. Giant ancestry confers on half- and part-Giants a robust constitution, including denser bone structure and greater resistance to most diseases and poisons, as well as marginally heightened hearing, vision, and smell. Occasionally, part-Giants will also inherit other physical features from their Giant parent, such as pronounced or sharp teeth, additional body hair, or literal thick skin. 

Contrary to popular belief, part-Giants are not inherently unintelligent or evil, though they do often experience the intense instinctual aggression of their ancestors. As it is nearly impossible to acclimate to life within a Giant family or clan, most part-Giants are raised within the wizarding community, where ostracization from their peers may lead to challenges completing education and finding employment. Like many creatures faced with disenfranchisement, oftentimes part-Giants find their livelihoods off-the-beaten-path: in the realms of private security, prize fighting and dueling, wilderness expertise, and dangerous creature handling, as well as other forms of magical labour. 

Vampire - neutral evil / lawful evil

Vampires are nocturnal creatures belonging to the ranks of the Living Dead. They are humanoid in appearance, with deathly skin, gaunt features, and pronounced, pointed incisors resembling animal fangs. Parasitic in nature, they subsist entirely on the blood of the living; this renders them effectively immortal, with many vampires living for hundreds if not thousands of years. 

In addition to possessing heightened senses (hearing the beat of a fly’s wings, smelling the edge of rot in a strawberry just before it turns), vampires are immune to disease and poison; most are also able to learn to transform into bats or temporary mists. Vampires are also capable of feats of extrahuman strength and speeds faster than the human eye can track, but this action leaves them exhausted and vulnerable, and is thus used sparingly.

Part-Vampire - lawful neutral / lawful evil

The rare progeny of vampires and humans, part-vampires may be of wixen or muggle blood. Predominantly human in appearance, part-vampires take on the deathly pall of their vampire parent and have noticeably longer incisors than the average person. They are mortal save for their extended lifespan, which may last as long as several hundred years, and causes slowed aging. Unlike full vampires, part-vampires do not need to consume blood to survive, although the lack of it renders the part-vampire effectively human.

For those part-vampires who do choose to consume blood as part of their diet, they are afforded a lesser degree of the supernatural powers their parent exhibits. They will rarely fall ill, and are immune to most poisons. They may possess heightened senses and the capacity for enormous strength and speed, but these require a large intake of blood and leave the part-vampire prone for days after the fact.

Veela -   neutral evil

Veela (or vila) are a type of supernatural being with origins in the slavic nations. The veela, characterised by their otherworldly and terrifying beauty and are known for their spite. Like vampires, true veela are created instead of born, however, unlike vampires, their lifespans are not indefinite.

The transformation is ritualistic in nature, however, unlike vampires and werewolves, does not require a bite of any sort. The veela have the ability to transform into a hideous and ravenous creature with talons, a mouthful of sharp fangs, and sprouted black oil-slicked feathers.Veelas age at an extremely slow-rate from the time that they are transformed, living two to three hundred years longer than your average wixen individual. Due to glamour magic, no aging is seen, leading to the incorrect rumour that they do not age.

Part-Veela -   true neutral

Since the veela’s introduction to wixen society, it has become more common to see the progeny of a veela and a human. Veelas can mate with wixen and non-wixen alike, however, non-wixen progeny will only inherit their veela parent’s famed beauty and ability to partially transform. This ability to transform can only be inherited by half-veelas. 

Half-veelas outlive your typical wixen individual by fifty to one hundred years. Part-veelas (the children of half-veela) do not typically inherit these prolonged lifecycles. 

Werewolves - chaotic neutral / chaotic evil

Werewolves are those persons afflicted with the condition of lycanthropy: an unstoppable transformation from human into a monstrous, wolf-like creature. The only way to become a werewolf is to be bitten by one and survive; both muggles and wix can be turned into werewolves. Governed by the moon, werewolves transform once a month, when the moon is full. A werewolf’s wolf form is distinct from normal wolves: considerably larger and more humanoid, with slightly thinner fur, and a wider range of mobility of limbs. In addition to the physical tax of transformation, werewolves are especially vulnerable to burns and poisoning by silver and vampire blood. The Wolfsbane Potion has not yet been invented; therefore, werewolves are presently incapable of maintaining their human minds during transformation.

 The most robust werewolf packs in the U.K. are known as Pack Máni, Pack Vargr, and Pack Úlfar, which are largely codependent, providing one another with key resources. Nearly all werewolves live outside of the artificial hierarchy of alpha/beta/omega observed in wolves in captivity, instead using majority consensus and the wisdom of more experienced werewolves to guide decision-making. One notable exception is Pack Úlfar, which has recently adopted this structure as a reflection of Voldemort’s upper echelon of supporters. Generally speaking, most packs are presumed to be aligned with Voldemort and his supporters — though this stance is increasingly contentious.