#they are uniquely better and more human than the majority of their ethnic group / fellow nationals / whatever

[metapphjores]

there is no future or liberation for any movements that sees their "enemies" as non-human

[swanlake1998]

Article: The Black Ballet Celeb Taking On Racism in Dance

Date: June 21, 2021

By: Mary Scott Manning

With a raft of Instagram followers and a modeling contract, the Washington Ballet’s Nardia Boodoo is as close as it gets to a pop celeb in the rarefied world of ballet. Now she’s trying to make that world more fair.

A ballerina, by definition, does not speak—at least not with words. The body is her language, and she spends her life mastering its vocabulary, usually at others’ direction: a casting list on the wall, a choreographer’s instructions, a critic’s review. For dancers of color, this fact has been doubly true.

But last year, after a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd, and organizations across the professional spectrum were called out by people of color for furthering systemic racism, the overwhelmingly white world of ballet wasn’t spared. One of the most influential voices in that conversation was a dancer with the Washington Ballet, 27-year-old Nardia Boodoo.

You may have seen her onstage, one of the company’s five Black dancers, or in the pages of Marie Claire—she’s a model repped by Wilhelmina who has starred in campaigns for Tory Burch, Chanel Beauty, and Nike. She began dancing only 13 years ago, but Boodoo, whose roots are Indo-Trinidadian, has soared into the pantheon of ballet celebrities, the object of teen worship and the subject of fan art (plus at least one look-alike doll).

What was never visible was the racism she endured on the way up. “Despite the fact that I work hard in rehearsal, throw myself into my art form and perform on international stages,” as she put it on Instagram on May 31, 2020, “when I return home”—to Bethesda—”I’m still most likely to be questioned and harassed for walking my dog late at night in an affluent area…that I reside in.”

This month, Boodoo appears in one of the Washington Ballet’s latest productions, choreographed by the renowned Black dancer Silas Farely. Yet some of her most important recent work has occurred behind the scenes over the past year as she pushed the company to own ballet’s history of prejudice and its responsibility to change. “She’s just been a really, really important voice in helping us to galvanize and discuss all very important issues,” says Julie Kent, the company’s artistic director, issues that “haven’t really been addressed previously, and not just at the Washington Ballet but in ballet as an art form.”

When Boodoo started training at 14, Misty Copeland was making history as American Ballet Theatre’s first Black soloist in two decades, following trailblazing Black ballerinas such as Lauren Anderson and Raven Wilkinson. Boodoo’s peers at the Baltimore School for the Arts, meanwhile, were majority-African American, a “strong base,” she says, for a young artist of color. Boodoo earned a scholarship to Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet, then landed a coveted sport in the Washington Ballet’s studio company while still a teenager.

Leaving home, though, occasioned her first experiences with racial bias in ballet. “I’ve had someone who holds power say to me, ‘Well, because you stick out so much in the corps, you have to work so much harder, because everyone’s going to be looking at you,'” she says. “That’s not my fault that you only have one Black girl in the corps.”

It was the classic conundrum of a second generation. She wasn’t the one who broke down the door. But she still had to contend with an environment that was less than welcoming. And the pressure to fit a stereotype needled her. Virtually every professional Black dancer feels it: having to straighten curly hair, receiving costumes with mesh that doesn’t match their skin tone, wearing the pink tights that make light-skinned dancers look lithe but appear to chop inches off those with darker complexions. Sometimes Boodoo’s colleagues would make hurtful comments. “Stupid things,” she recalls, “like ‘Your hair smells like Black-girl hair.'”

Rachael Parini, a friend and the only other Black dancer when Boodoo joined the company, remembers when they were asked to wear white powder in Giselle, a tradition in the ballet but a loaded proposition for Black performers. At a rehearsal, the stager hollered over the loudspeaker: “Rachael and Nardia, why are you blue?” The powder apparently had turned their brown skin another hue under the cool stage lights.

Parini describes her friend as a force—”not one to back down from a fight.” But back then, the women endured the routine microaggression quietly. For all its glamour, a ballet company is a workplace like any other, governed by hierarchies and unwritten social codes. With one big difference: There’s usually no formal human-resources department. “You sort of get this vibe that this is how it is,” says Boodoo. “The more subservient you are…the better and the more instruction you’ll receive…the further your career will go on.”

After starting to model, Boodoo met a photographer who was perplexed by her acquiescence. He described how the New York dancers he knew were much more assertive. It was a revelation: Boodoo’s confidence and following grew. She became an apprentice at the Pennsylvania Ballet, then returned to DC, becoming a full company member in 2019.

By the time the country was protesting for racial justice and dancers of color began organizing over Zoom, she was ready to speak out. “To all the dancers that don’t feel supported by their companies,” she posted to Instagram on June 1, 2020, “I think it’s time to make some changes and to hold them accountable.” Andrea Long-Naidu, a former New York ballet star and a past teacher of Boodoo’s, looked on with pride: “When I had her at Dance Theatre of Harlem, she wasn’t aware of her powers yet.”

Seeing her staff in pain after George Floyd’s Killing, Kent convened an all-company Zoom. Voice cracking, Boodoo recounted her experiences, explaining that the bias often presented itself as overtly as it did implicitly: The problem wasn’t simply getting passed over for a role but also being told her face looked “too ethnic” for the part.

Kent, who is white, listened on the other side of the screen, distinctly aware of the vulnerability on display among her dancers. A former principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre, she performed on global stages and had a part in the beloved 2000 movie Center Stage. “I have a unique role and responsibility in order to move [the art form] forward,” she says, “and allow for the kind of career and love that I had to be possible for as many people as possible.”

Kent inherited one of the country’s most diverse companies from her predecessor, Septime Webre, who had recruited worldwide and electrified the institution’s cultural cachet. She had added 16 dancers to the corps, almost half of whom identify as BIPOC—and now they were hurting. There’s also the matter of competition. The Ballet has to compete with bigger acts imported by the Kennedy Center. In some ways, its relevance hinges on broadening ballet’s historically older, white audience with admirers whose woke-ness won’t tolerate notions of “diversity” that predate Black Lives Matter—or that feel performative.

Kent formed a working group with members from every department to tackle issues of inclusion and equity, and an outside consultant has been guiding their monthly meetings and homework. Boodoo, who represents the performers along with Oscar Sanchez, a Cuban dancer, had expected pushback. But her fan base and platform—a social-media audience that, at nearly 50,000 on Instagram, is within striking distance of some top New York ballerinas’—would have been tough for the company to ignore.

As wider discussions started, though, it became clear that white privilege was a new concept to some. Boodoo was dismayed that some colleagues were unfamiliar with certain civil-rights leaders, so she helped organize a remote study of the book The New Jim Crow. To prod management, she and fellow colleagues of color met privately to hash out ideas for the company at large. It’s been exhausting to divide her energy between institutional matters and the rigors of performing: “You want to just focus on your art form, you just want to focus on being beautiful, being a strong dancer, and contributing to the task at hand.”

Partly because of Covid limits on gatherings and partly because they had to start with building a shared vocabulary, the working group’s progress has felt slow. But they’re in the process of finalizing recommendations to address the places where inequity creeps in. Money, donors, time, and institutional commitment, meanwhile, all could limit their progress. The group, for instance, envisions a Nutcracker free of racist tropes—in particular, the traditional Arabian and Chinese dances, which play up offensive cultural stereotypes. But ticket sales help fund the annual budget. Will the public support changes to the beloved show? Can the company handle that financial risk?

The stakes—Black dancers continually being overlooked or leaving ballet—feel higher now that the work has begun. Still, Boodoo says she feels hopeful that the company will evolve. “She’ll be someone,” says Long-Naidu, “that’ll go down in the history books of Black ballerinas.” An artist who championed a new act for the ballet, or at least one who tried.

[aion-rsa]

How The Walking Dead: World Beyond Expands the Zombie Universe with Its Unique Teen Characters

https://ift.tt/3kB7pU3

After its premiere was delayed by several months due to COVID-19, the two-season The Walking Dead spinoff series The Walking Dead: World Beyond finally makes its debut this week. The story expands the TWD universe in a unique way, taking place 10 years after the zombie outbreak and focusing on a predominantly teenage cast of characters. Unlike the battered groups of survivors from The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead, these teens have been sheltered from walkers (or “empties,” as they’re called on this show) within the walls of a university in Omaha, Nebraska, a thriving colony that has afforded them a relatively normal, safe life post-outbreak.

But, as fans will learn from the very first episode, the Campus Colony (as it’s referred to) does have a seemingly precarious arrangement with the Civic Republic Military (CRM), whose ominous helicopters act as a narrative thread that ties the three shows together. It’s safe to say you’ll learn way more about this mysterious faction in World Beyond than ever before.

The show primarily centers on sisters Iris (Aliyah Royale) and Hope (Alexa Mansour), who leave the safety of the University in search of their father, brilliant scientist Dr. Leo Bennett (Joe Holt), who they’ve learned is somewhere in New York. Joining them on their mission are fellow student Elton (Nicolas Cantu), a resourceful scientist and historian (who also happens to know karate), and school janitor Silas (Hal Cumpston), a soft-spoken social outcast whose murky past has earned him a questionable reputation on campus. The teens are tailed by battle-tested adult guardians Felix (Nico Tortorella) and Huck (Annet Mahendru).

Last fall, I visited the show’s set in Richmond, Virginia, where filming was underway for episode 7 of the show (alas, there were no CRM helicopters in sight). The location was an old waterpark called Hadad’s Lake, which was appropriately creepy-looking. The abandoned facilities looked dreary and greyed-out under the looming rainclouds — the juxtaposition of a children’s park rotting in a post-apocalypse seemed to fit the show thematically as well.

Huddled around a table with other members of the press under a tent that sheltered our equipment from the occasional drizzle, we were joined by the cast members one by one to talk about their respective characters and what fans can expect from the show. Here’s what we learned:

Iris

“Iris is smart and caring and loving and doesn’t have a selfish bone in her body,” Royale says of her character. “She really wants to make sure that every single person that she encounters is taken care of and has what they need. At some point she realizes maybe it’s time to start doing things for herself and when she makes that switch, it is a roller coaster of events.”

Serving as the beating heart of the show, Iris is an overachiever on campus and a compassionate leader amongst her peers. She’s got a tight bond with Hope, and while Iris is generally viewed as the more straight-laced, level-headed of the two, the absence of her father compels her to make the drastic decision to venture out beyond the University walls for the first time.

“The mission for Iris is: where’s my dad at?” Royale explains. “I want my dad back. The other side of that is, Iris is following in his footsteps. She’s super involved in science, biomedical engineering, all of those things that her father’s brain is being used for…that’s exactly the path that she’s going towards. Saving the world.”

At the University, though the majority of students haven’t encountered empties, they’re trained by instructors like Felix to defend themselves against the dead, including with a weapon called an S-pole, a staff with a retractable blade at one end. Iris is a fast learner, although she quickly discovers that no amount of training can actually prepare her for the horrors that await in the real world.

“She’s got a lot of information stored up here,” Royale says as she points at her head. “But the minute that she encounters the first walker, it’s this just absolute fear. As much as you learn, as many books as you read, you could never feel [that fear] until you’re in that moment. You’ve got your four best friends next to you, and it’s you or the empty.”

Hope

“She doesn’t give a shit about anything,” Mansour says of the rebellious Hope. “She lives for today and I mean, realistically, she doesn’t think she’s going to live tomorrow. She’s pretty sure she could die at any moment and I don’t think she really cares. So she gets herself in trouble, doesn’t care what people say, and is always doing the opposite of what Felix tells her to do. It’s kind of ironic that her name is Hope because she really doesn’t have any of it.”

Hope and Iris have a tight bond despite their polar opposite temperaments and outlooks on life. “They’re complete opposites,” says Mansour. “Iris is the one that will be off studying until four in the morning while Hope would probably be partying until four in the morning. But they love each other. I think they really do balance each other out. Iris will bail Hope out whenever she is sneaking out and doing stuff that she should not be doing, and Hope would take a bullet for her sister.”

As for Hope’s lack of, well, hope, in human beings and their future prospects on the planet, Mansour made it clear that this speaks to a pressing real-world issue of mental health that affects teens everywhere. As someone who was bullied for her ethnicity (she’s half Hispanic, half Egyptian), she feels World Beyond and the platform it’s given her will allow her to help teenagers who are struggling like she has.

“I really hope they realize that they’re not alone,” Mansour says. “I think it’s important for kids who are watching this to take away that it’s okay to be open about what you’re feeling and it’s okay to feel what you’re feeling and it’s not the end of the world, it is going to get better.”

Felix

“Felix is the head of security detail at the university,” says Tortorella, who also reveals that his character identifies as queer. “He is kind of an adopted son to the girls’ dad. He had a troubled childhood dealing with his family coming to terms or not coming to terms with him being gay. He’s very much a hero. He protects the people around him in a way that’s contradictory to the stereotype of like what a gay character usually is on television. And that’s why I was really excited to play this role.”

Tortorella, who identifies as genderfluid, felt drawn to the show and the The Walking Dead franchise for its strong representation of marginalized communities. “The diversity was a huge thing coming into it, you know? We have people from all walks of life on this show. Genders, sexualities, race, religions. It was a no brainer for me.”

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Hope and Iris’s father took Felix in as family after the outbreak, and Felix’s made a promise to take care of the girls at all costs. Unlike the sisters, he and his partner Huck have seen action outside the Campus’ walls, which makes him a formidable fighter. When Iris and Hope escape the walls of the colony, Felix and Huck quickly give chase.

“Yeah, he’s in full dad mode all the time with these kids,” Tortorella explains. “I think that like after the first episode, the stakes are at maximum levels in terms of our safety and our fight for survival. And Felix is the one that has the most training in terms of any sort of military background that we know of.”

Huck

Huck is Felix’s right hand, dear friend, and confidant. She sports a sizable scar across her cheek, which all but confirms she���s been through some tough shit.

“Huck comes from a Marines background,” Mahendru says. “When you first meet Huck, you just know the scar. There’s a story [behind it]. She is an independent thinker. She’s really tough, but she’s really hopeful and really positive and warm and is adamant about bringing the world back to what it was. She wants as many people to live as possible.”

As for Huck’s relationship to the sisters, Mahendru says that she has a deep connection with Hope, who she sees herself in. “She was a bit of a rebel when she was young, [too]. They have a big/little sister relationship, and I train her how to fight. I want her to survive out there. I mean I’m going to send her out there and so I’m responsible for her. I really believe in her potential and I feel her pain. I’ve gone through the same similar things.”

Elton

“Elton is a very intellectually curious child,” Cantu says. “He has been sheltered from the world outside with a bunch of horrible, horrible things happening out there. So he’s kind of trying to understand the world for what it is and how nature is changing along with most of humanity. He’s on a journey to analyze and document and just see what this new world is about.”

A classmate of Iris and Hope’s who offers to join them on their quest to find their father, Elton admits that the outside world isn’t exactly foreign to him.

“Elton has been outside of the walls before because he does a lot of experiments outside,” Cantu explains as he motions to the mustard-colored, corduroy suit he’s wearing. “It’s bite proof, which Elton learned through controlled experiments. So he kind of has a little bit of a glimpse as to what the outside world is. But once he steps out there, it’s intense.”

Cantu says he sees a lot of himself in Elton. “I really do relate to Elton. I mean, he’s kind of got this view of the world where he’s very blunt with it. He knows a bunch of the threats out there. He realizes stepping outside of those walls is going to be a life changing thing. The world is brutal and he has just come to accept that. So if it’s coming down to survival, he’s ready, he’s prepared, he’s got everything on lock. And I feel like if I was in an apocalypse, I would prepare similarly to Elton.”

Silas

“He’s been shunned by the particular community they’re in. People refer to him as a monster or just completely shun him. It’s like a Boo Radley type of character,” Cumpston reveals about the quiet Silas. “No one knows his exact story, you know what I mean? When kids hear something then they exaggerate and that type of thing.”

Cumpston, a young Australian actor and filmmaker also feels he relates to Silas. “Yeah, everyone’s felt like an outcast. There’s definitely been situations where I’ve felt like an outcast. I’d be a funny kid at school. I joined a soccer team and there’s already these different funny personalities [on the team] and I’m just sort of like the quiet kid who’s also not good [at soccer]. I’m like, ‘Oh, fuck. I need to make up for it by being funny but there are no opportunities.’” 

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Unlike his three teenage counterparts, Silas isn’t a student at the school, and he’s got little excuse not to join the others on their quest, seeing as he hasn’t got much going for him at the Campus.

“He’s just a janitor who no one speaks to and everyone refers to as a monster,” Cumpston says. “When he walks past people on campus, you can hear that people don’t have very nice things to say about him. He catches wind that there’s an [opportunity] to prove to himself and these other people that he’s not a monster.”

The Walking Dead: World Beyond premieres on Oct. 4 at 10 pm ET on AMC.

The post How The Walking Dead: World Beyond Expands the Zombie Universe with Its Unique Teen Characters appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/33p1yvx

[l-in-c-future]

A pair of Kazakh couple who returned to live in the oil capital city of Kazakhstan Atyau:

“We responded to the urging calling from our Kazakhstan President to return home about a decade ago. We made jokes that whether or not we lived in China, we still work for China’s petroleum State Owned Enterprises.” 

They used to work for one of those SOEs in NE of Kazakhstan, yet the project had stopped. They have to find new jobs in the Western Kazakhstan. They didn’t know their work was related to the OROB until TV media from China came to shoot documentary.

They experienced that China did not provide many employment opportunities to local Kazakhs except those low skills and low technological levels jobs. China State Enterprises only hired their technical and engineering staff from China without demonstrating any intention to train up local people to acquire higher level and therefore higher paid jobs. China’s SOEs tend to bring their own teams of people in thousands to work in all infrastructure projects.

Increasing protests in capital city: 

Increasing incidents of protests in Astana were noted as more and more people are frustrated and angry about their lands being leased to foreigners on very term long bases. They worried that their government would lease their lands to China. e.g. The Kazakhstan government had leased a piece of land to a China petroleum SOE for 5 years, China wanted another 25 years, local people don’t wanted to see this as a standard pattern.

“It can’t say that there is no benefits brought by foreigners but we have to be truly mutually benefited. Our government shouldn’t lease all the lands to foreigners for long term like 25 or 30 years but should renew the leases on say every 5 years. We should not allow massive influx of foreigners as well.”

“We are afraid because they, the number of Han Chinese influx, are too many, many local people don’t feel comfortable.”

“I don’t think everyone should only live on the Road and Belt.” “Even though there may be good policies intentions made by both governments, I don’t see any solid progress, we cannot sit here to wait in vain.”

A HK migrant (Chris) married to a Uyghur-Kazakh mixed family living in Kazakhstan for 20 years

“My wife’s maiden family don’t know what is One Road One Belt, China means daily needed goods sold in the markets for them. From time to time, I am being questioned that why the inconsistent standards of China made goods. I don’t think the poor quality China made goods has anything related to me but I am careful in choosing the goods.”

In the Eastern part of Kazakhstan where it bordered with China’s Xinjiang Province, the Uyghurs living at two sides of the borders belong to the same ethnic clan. They empathize their fellow ethnic members who suffer under China’s oppressive policies. Their impression about China is based on how China treats the Uyghurs. They don’t have good impression about China.

“The Uyghurs here resent Chinese Han people a lot. Many of my friends and neighbours frequently tell me how much they hate Chinese privately.They don’t understand why China always persecute their fellow ethnic members. Some years ago there were violent riots in Xinjiang, some Uyghurs who lived in the capital city here echoed their supporting voices as well. Even though people are separated by border lines, that don’t cut off their natural ethnic bonds.

China attempts to buy political and diplomatic supports from neighbouring Central Asian countries’ leaders to support, echo or even assist their highly oppressive policies against the Uyghurs to curb the Xinjiang independent movement through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. China tirelessly frame the ‘terrorists’ threats caused by the Uyghurs as an excuse to justify ethnic persecution. 

Now with One Road One Belt, China pushes an economic card to buy or bait further sympathy from the neighbouring countries regarding its Uyghurs policies. While China may be able to orchestra deals with the elite leaders who were their former fellow communist leaders in the Soviet Union or who are governing similar authoritarian regimes like China, it is much harder to buy the hearts of local people, especially many of the ethnic people in Central Asian countries also have their fellow ethnic clan members living in Xinjiang. For example, Kazakhs is the second largest ethnic group population, following Uyghurs. 

China doesn’t considerate the resentment coming from their neighbours who witnessed the drastic colonization by Han Chinese in Xinjiang in the past several decades had resulted in significant dilution and marginalization of the original demographic compositions. A result of putting them in very disadvantaged and discriminated positions. They share deeply the same worry and fear of what may happen to them in their own countries under China’s increasing dominating influences. Will their future will be a Xinjianization.  

“Even though China has replaced Russia to become Kazakhstan’s major trading partner, the old political tie with Russia is still strong and close. Many Kazakhs consider this relationship superior to they have with China. Many of them have prejudice against China. Even though both Russia and China are communist country, Kazakhs perceived that those happened in Russia and in their country were through ‘genuine’ revolutions while the Communist Party in China gained power through civil war and power seizures.”

“I observe China is trying to increase its recognition and appraised from other countries through cultural exchange. What China thinks the Confucius and calligraphy as important essences of culture may not be equally seen by other people because every place, every nation, every tribe has their own unique beauties and goodness in their own historical and cultural heritages. If China only wants to spread its own culture to other people single sidedly with an aim to make others follow the China model, I don’t think it is a successful way. Cultural exchange should be conducted on equal basis.”

China tries to increase her ‘soft power’ through cultural exchanges but many times the “cultural exchanges” come with economic packages and the content of the ‘culture’ is dictated by the Communist Party’s pre-screened ideological views. It is not soft power, it is subtle indoctrination as co-product or by-product of China’s economic exports.

Cultural exchange students from Kazakhstan studying in HK

“We like to come back to HK if we can because HK is very different from China.”

“We do not hear of One Road and One Belt.”

Is it? How much longer HK can be still seen as having her competitive advantage in many foreigners’ eyes when China is increasingly squeezing and wiping out HK’s uniqueness through suffocating HK’s legitimate autonomy and screwing her freedom?

“Kazakhstan’s tertiary education places a lot of emphasis on science and technological training while ignoring human and social science education. In such background, it makes people not resisting China’s economic development driven China model. At the present, many Kazakhs cannot relate how freedom, human rights, and righteous to their daily life. But how about the future? Those students who study overseas who have seen a different society and different lifestyle in other places, they may think it is also something that can be feasible in Kazakhstan as well. They may voice out their demand to fight for a better society. When this happens, it depends on whether and how the Kazakhstan government can accommodate the new civil demands.”

No matter where people live, once they have seen a bigger better alternative world, it is hard to ask them to satisfy in a caged environment in long term. However, China is using all the means to control its overseas students. Even trying to mobilize them in extreme nationalistic behaviours in overseas or using them as extended limbs to intervene academic freedoms in the campuses and classrooms of overseas schools.

Does the so-called “China model” of ‘cultural exchange’ really heartfully facilitate young people in the Road and Belt countries to broaden their worldviews and life experiences or China wants to dupe its even more repressive remote-controlled citizens to other already authoritarian countries?

Is it just another means of China’s ‘soft bait’ to young people in other countries?

Vietnam

Projects in Vietnam had been halted or stopped when Sino-Vietnam relationship is tense. 

“Some projects are suspended because of major industrial accidents, wages not paid to workers and other quality issues. The costs of construction had rocketed from USD 500 million to 800 million. We still don’t know when the sky rail would be completed. The budget exceeded portion will be topped up by Vietnam government, means being ultimately paid by the Vietnam taxpayers.” commented from Dong, a local Vietnamese policy analyst.

Many China capital companies offered very low prices to bid the infrastructure contracts by eying Vietnam’s high infrastructure needs but doesn’t have sufficient infrastructure development funds. There is a concern regarding the quality and safety standards of such cheap constructions.

“Vietnam is stuck in a paradox now.” 

Apart from infrastructures, Vietnam is also heavily relying on China for her supply of daily goods. Some years ago, there was civil opinion discussing and debating how to escape from China.

“We should think how Vietnam can speeds up her own reform development and modernization. Instead of escaping from China, we should think how we can overcome and make ourselves better than China.”  

[oculis-grp]

“Racism: More Than Skin-Deep.”

Written by: Alexandra, Alexis, Blossom, Elven, Ninio, Kate, Kyle, and Rhea

Racism is one of the topics that has ignited discussion because of humanity's most pronounced and profound differences; suggested, divided, segregated, and excluded are some of the words we might use to define the behavior taken against certain racial, religious, political, and other classes, and that for the purpose of intensifying efforts to eradicate all types of discrimination. It has always been and continues to be a significant issue even in our modern-day society.

In our own written history, there have been invaders had their own vision for supremacy, which caused a growing change towards the culture of the world since then. It is here that racism began to be a growing phenomenon in the past, as these people who came from different races had no possession in basic human rights and suffered in the inequality that was placed into their circumstances due to the growing biases placed upon them due to their background.

It stems from the notion that comes from a way of thinking since society has always been afraid and threatened by others who are different and unique in comparison to their own brand of normalcy and standards. With this, it incorporates thoughts and ideas that others that hail from different countries and upbringings, they are perceived as unworthy of respect, dignity, equality, happiness, and among others, and are thought to have become a threat to the much more “better”, “sophisticated”, and “proper” culture and safety.

Due to this, a hatred towards anything that is incompatible with their evolving ways of thinking and behaving, or simply because they don't realize that we all have the same right to freedom and that we aren't liable for how we were born, our sexual preference, or other issues that include prejudice. It has been continuously been ignored throughout many points in history and some not even acknowledging that it doesn’t exist.

But the reality is that this is a form of human oppression, as well as a threat to all people. Racism has changed dramatically over time, and the divide between its classic expressions, which appeal to science, and its modern manifestations, which increasingly rely on the definition of cultural distinction and incompatibility, has grown wider. Owing to prejudice or a lack of knowledge thereof, are one of the most common causes of racist attitudes is a fear of what is different or of people who come from other countries.

Although, Racism may exist between people on a personal level, it also takes place in various organizations and foundations as a result of their conduct in their policies, processes, and practices. Individual bias is a result of a society's way of life. It refers to discriminatory attitudes and practices, as well as discrimination based on conscious and personal bias.

Racism may also manifest itself as individualism, the desire to eliminate power hierarchies and link personal agendas to racial or structural issues, in which a group of individuals believes that their words are not discriminatory because they are personal opinions, and there are actually more sections when it comes to racism.

For example, there is the existence of systemic racism, which occurs when policies and procedures are embedded in existing institutions, resulting in a group's exclusion and promotion. There is also Individual racism stems from a combination of learned and wider socioeconomic backgrounds and structures, which are aided by structural racism.

Another type of racism is economic racism, which is caused by patriarchal racism and historical factors and usually affects the next generation due to a lack of formal education and parental preparation. Furthermore, racism exists in today's schools; adolescent students may be naive or ignorant, and their conduct towards other students of a different ethnicity is conditioned by their peers and the integration of these actions that could potential stem from their background.

Bullying, for example, is a major problem in our schools, particularly after 9/11, when students mocked each other and physically injured Middle Eastern students, labeling them as terrorists. Not only that, but some parents themselves are found to be also instilling in their children the belief that it is acceptable to degrade the integrity of others, as well as teaching them to despise those they consider “inferior” or “weaker”.

It is important to note that, while racism and stereotyping are linked and not be the same thing, they actually are because racism is the assumption that a certain category can produce better individuals in terms of skills and physical appearance and individuals can be racists whether they are aware of it or not and it could stay within the mind and thought process of the population because because there are groups and individuals who actively advocate and support its harmful ideologies and methods, these contributing to its damaging relevance and existence even further.

In light of the current world affairs, Many will believe that we have overcome racism but we actually have not. Evidence of this is the on-going fight on overcoming hate crimes on both Black and Asian racism throughout parts of the world for the belief that that those from Asian descent are the ones “responsible” for the causing the COVID-19 Pandemic or those who hail from black communities are “dangerous” and “evil”.

In a localized context, in the Philippines there are is also an unsaid influence and often positive associations when it comes to foreigners, particularly those coming from the West such as the Americans, Canadians, and the Europeans, who are often greeted with enthusiastic greetings and welcomes the second they step into the country. But the pure opposite can be said for other races such as those who hail from the Middle East, Africa, and other parts of the Asian continent, as they are faced with mocking gestures and imitations and are a primary target for assault and violence.

It doesn’t also help that the country is known to have a preference towards paler-skinned individuals and countries in comparison those from darker-skinned ones. There have been many distasteful jokes and associations about having tan skin such as being from a place of poverty and are deemed to be “less attractive” when compared to those who have lighter and fair complexions who seen as more “amiable”.

When it comes to these types of beliefs, this could place children, no matter how young they are, into the impression that their value and worth as people are only recognizable by the color and shade of their skin and could take years for them to truly love themselves as individuals for the way that they are.

As a result of these negative and prejudiced beliefs, These said individuals who are inflicted to harassment, violence, abuse, and humiliation. The scars that come with after surviving these traumatic events, may have physically healed, but it is the wounds on the inside that are still struggling to get better. The impact and news of these types of cases will massively impact the victims as well as their loved ones in the process, some which don’t even get to heal even with time and may haunt them for generations on end.  

Therefore, Every person should take part in fighting this long and often misunderstood and ignored war. Stopping prejudice begins with one's own self-awareness. Individuals should be educated about its consequences and these ways of thinking should be eradicated because it promotes and inflicts hate and harm to several types of people and the communities that they belong to.

As the world continues to grow and evolve as the decades and centuries that have passed, we humans do too since we learn from the many mistakes we make since the start of time as no race is superior than the other. We may all live and grow in different traditions and belief but in all of these there is humanity, and that does not require dissection among races. We the people, should strive to grow and foster a better world to stand against this and continue to support equality and respect for everyone no matter the race.

However, it is not only the job of the individuals to place forward such actions and the need for change for the betterment of all, but it also the responsibility of those in power, who are capable of setting the stage up for change, to ensure that the demands and the voices of the people, their citizens and fellow countrymen, are met and should be answered with drastic measures and calls so that these incidents will only cease to occur, not only for the safety and welfare of certain marginalized groups, but for the progress of the future for all.  

To summarize our sentiments with regards to this topic, Racism is more than skin-deep. This is a system that has been enduring for a time now and continues to affect and impact millions everyday. For a long time slavery, ethnic discrimination, and white supremacy are only some of the racial discrimination are one of the many examples of this behavior and thinking that are happening in our society then and even now.

However, the antagonism over other races is gradually being combated in our society since the world is progressing, with people are getting educated and corrected in order to avoid racial and other types of discrimination. It is through both learning these causes and factions and exhibiting true compassion towards those are who different to us can we be able to combat this harmful and often invisible threat.

Posting and advocating causes such as these on social media is a great way to get many more people be more aware and involved with the situation the world is in, but it is not the only way to do so and we shouldn’t stop there. Instead, we should find more effective ways as a response. For example, by applying as much as we can learn from different forms of media such as the Internet, pod casts, books, and much more, and using them in real-life situations, not only can we help those who are not privileged as we are, but also at the same time, educating ourselves and the people around us.

We should, instead, evolve as individuals and eradicate bigotry from our lives as there isn't much of a difference between us. We are all humans who breathe the same air and eat the same food. Our main distinctions are the color of our skin and our abilities to perform certain tasks; otherwise, we are all the same.

[hpoelzig]

Four Reviews—Kong: Skull Island, Sausage Party, Wonder Woman, Shin Godzilla

KONG: SKULL ISLAND

Legendary’s Monsterverse series gets its second installment, following Gareth Edwards’ somber and successful resurrection of GODZILLA (2014). Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts blends sensibilities from the original KING KONG (1933) with APOCALYPSE NOW and some sly nods to the Conrad novel HEART OF DARKNESS that inspired that indelible war film to skillfully craft an action-packed tour of Kong’s homeland. Here, in a hidden island surrounded by perpetual storms which serves as a graveyard of lost ships, serene, mute indigenous people revere the massive ape as a protector deity. And rightly so, as this adolescent fellow primate lost his parents to the ravening reptilian Skull Crawlers who emerge from the underground world—likely be a plot point for future films in this series.

MONARCH (the secretive government research agency) scientists and military men invade on helicopters and drop bombs to perform seismic surveys, but this rouses Kong to swat them from the sky and provokes the arrival of the devils from below. Not the typical “beauty and the beast” tale told in the best two prior Kong films—the Cooper original and the Jackson 2005 loving homage to it—this one brings mankind up against creatures whose god-like size and strength question the dominion of our species of this planet, which in the Monsterverse mythology has long been the territory of ancient Daijkaiju.

In an homage to Boorman’s HELL IN THE PACIFIC, the film begins in 1944 with an American and a Japanese pilot crashing on the island. They continue their aerial battle hand to hand, but are halted by the arrival of Kong, who is less a giant gorilla and more an evolutionary step between gorilla and human. John C. Reilly as Lieutenant Hank Marlow steals the film as the aged pilot who has survived almost three decades on that dangerous ground and thus plays a pivotal role in making certain some of the Monarch group can reach the rendezvous point to be rescued. The redoubtable Samuel L. Jackson as Lieutenant Colonel Preston Packard puts on his Ahab boots to avenge his fellow soldiers who befell Kong’s wrath. You can guess how that plays out.

As you would want, there are many fascinating oversized beasts and the humans fare ill in some of their confrontations with them. There are dramatic encounters between Kong and the humans as well as his subterranean enemies and the film concludes with a sweet resolution for Hank, and, post credits, some revelations by the MONARCH survivors revealing the creature cast of the currently filming GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS directed by Michael Dougherty, due in 2019. Kong will clash with Godzilla in 2020 under the enthusiastic direction of Adam Wingard. I await both with much anticipation!

SAUSAGE PARTY

I was sent this animated film as a gift by a friend who said not a word as to why it had been selected for me. He has an earthy sense of humor and is a talented artist as well as keen observer of the human animal, so I was prepared for something that might embody those aspects to some degree. I was not disappointed! Seth Rogen and his cohorts have crafted a devastating critique of the human foolishness of believing that some form of supernatural entities have their well-being as a primary concern. The various anthropomorphic foodstuffs in the supermarket have faith that the humans who purchase them will be bringing them somewhere better, a “Great Beyond” transcending their current existence on the shelves. But of course in time they learn the truth that being eaten awaits them and that their “gods” are but shabby, shallow, self-absorbed consumers.

Humor is broadly derived from the various ethnic food products conjuring outrageous stereotypes, and no holds are barred in that department—harking back to how such products were once advertised, though without the foul language and sexual behavior included here, making for an R rating. Most amusing for me is the Woody Allen-esque bisexual bagel voiced with manic exuberance by Edward Norton. For secularists not infected by the virus of political correctness, SAUSAGE PARTY is a ribald, raunchy hilarious feast. SJW pantywaists afraid of being triggered might want to stay away, as they’ll not find a safe space here.

WONDER WOMAN

The origin tale of Diana Prince, daughter of Zeus, is told with the proper amount of spectacle, humor, and gravity by Patty Jenkins and the eponymous character portayed with elegance and strength by Gal Gadot. Set during World War I, the visuals of the normal humans’ struggle are depicted in sepia tones shot through with fire, while Diana’s sheltered Themyscira is a lush, colorful island retreat with sophisticated art and architecture. There seemed to me a bit of a callback to Lucy Lawless’ Xena, Warrior Princess in the garb and martial techniques employed by the women of this hidden land.

What struck me as wonderfully Satanic is the philosophical outcome of this journey. Diana leaves her island as an idealist, holding love as a primary value and she has a rather simplistic view of her mission. In the course of her conflict with her brother Ares, who proclaims he is not the god of war, but of truth, he reveals to her the venality and mindless hatred of humanity in the global conflict he has cultivated. Diana witnesses horrors that are not simply conjured by Ares, but which are part of human nature. Yet the love she shares with Captain Steve Trevor—a charming Chris Pine—and his ultimate heroic sacrifice show her a broader range of human capabilities. Before dispatching Ares, as her father intended, Diana declares her embrace of humanity now with a full grasp of its spectrum of faults and glories—a third side perspective that we Satanists have proclaimed since Anton LaVey founded our philosophy in 1966. This is certainly one of the better DC films and should entertain those who enjoy these comic-derived larger-than-life beings as an embodiment of our propensity for embracing inspirational heroic mythology.

SHIN GOJIRA (SHIN GODZILLA / GODZILLA RESURGENCE)

While Edwards’ GODZILLA was in production, Toho hedged their bets by developing a live action GOJIRA film under the guidance of Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi, both fans and skilled contributors to Japanese fantastic cinema. Legendary had contracted to do three Godzilla films, but apparently because they delayed the sequel to the 2014 film, ostensibly waiting for Edwards to complete ROGUE ONE, Toho completed and released their live-action film in 2016, SHIN GOJIRA. Much like Kaneko’s wonderful one-off 2001 film, GODZILLA, MOTHRA, KING GHIDORAH: DAIKAJI SOKOUGEKI, this is an original take on Gojira that has no links to the other films Toho produced in its three prior series.

Anno wrote and directed and he’s known for the high weirdness of NEON GENESIS EVANGELION, so with Higuchi handling the SPFX (he did masterful work for Kaneko’s 90s GAMERA trilogy) this duo has wrought a political satire depicting governmental hesitancy to deal with the threat of a constantly evolving giant monster rising from the sea to lay waste to Japan. For the Japanese who have in recent memory dealt with tidal waves, earthquakes and the Fukushima disaster, they fully grasp this mockery of their own government. 

Rather than being some form of prehistoric monster roused by H bomb detonations, this monstrosity is a new life form evolving from a deep sea creature, possibly kin to a frill shark, that consumed nuclear waste dumped on the ocean bottom by the American government. Shin Godzilla—the name loosely implies deity much as the American term for Gojira includes the word God—is first witnessed as a gigantic tail lashing about in Tokyo bay (the first form). When it comes inland via waterways as a slithering, rubbery google-eyed intruder, leaking red fluid from its gill slits (Kamata-kun), the Prime Minister and his cabinet and advisors are continually paralyzed through fear of committing errors that will end their political careers, taking endless, fruitless meetings in numerous governmental chambers. It takes the intervention of Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Rando Yaguchi, a maverick who wants to get things done, to assemble a crew of outsiders and misfits who seek to understand and find a way to defeat this threat arising from mutated nature.

Kamata-kun seizes-up at one point, falling to the ground, but rouses to shift itsself into a red-hued, upright standing 50 meter beast (Shinagawa-kun) whose roar is the same as that of the original Gojira, and he’s accompanied by Ifukube’s score for that 1954 film. With glowing red patches surrounding his dorsal fins indicating some sort of overheating, Shinagawa-kun smashes through buildings and dives back into the bay. The hovering military ‘copters had yet to attack, hindered by the Prime Minister’s fear of harming civilians. Yaguchi’s team gathers and analyzes info, aided by a Japanese American beauty who shares secret data from the US authorities whom she represents. And then the full-sized bizarre golem Shin Gojira arises and begins a rampage.

As is traditional, the Japanese military, aided by American stealth bombers, prove ineffectual against this particularly hideous incarnation of Gojira. With a profusion of snuggle-teeth, seemingly sightless eyes, stunted forearms and an insanely long tail, Anno’s vision of a nightmare monster with bizarre powers is well-realized by Higuchi and his team. For the first time Toho went with CGI (aided by some motion capture) to render the majority of the effects and they are primarily very effective. This Gojira is magma-black with glowing red patches from within, much like the Burning Godzilla of 1995. But his wildly overpowered breath weapon, which goes from firestorm to purple laser beam, accompanied by similar bursts from his dorsal plates and mangled tail end are unique to this rendition. The film uses classic Ifukube score excerpts and evocative new music by Shiro Sagisu and even employs sound effects from Toho’s stock library, most dating to the original Showa series of Gojira films (1954-1975).

Under the threat of the US deploying nuclear weapons, Yaguchi rallies his team and they find a means to immobilize Gojira, aided by waves of US drones meant to distract it while attacks by explosive-laden train cars and finally tanker trucks filled with freezing chemicals ultimately cause Gojira to become a colossal statue as part of the Tokyo skyline. The last shot shows us that Gojira was willing forth a fifth form, as humanoid Godzillian beings had begun to emerge from the tip of its tail. This film was immensely successful both critically and financially in Japan, though a possible sequel cannot be released until after Legendary’s films emerge. However, Toho is currently producing an animated sci-fi trilogy set in the far future, GODZILLA: MONSTER PLANET, and the first of these will screen for US audiences on Netflix at the end of 2017, with the next two installments to be released in 2018. There’s a coming wealth of Godzilla to enjoy!

We are in a golden age of giant monsters which I’m celebrating in the third installment of the book and exhibition series I curate for HOWL gallery titled THE DEVILS REIGN: DAIKAIJU, to be released towards the end of this year.

—Magus Peter H. Gilmore

[technicallyzanyfestival-blog]

Info sheet Racism and Discrimination

Who?:         Racism and discrimination are endured by a vast variety of people. Racism in itself is heavily felt by dark skinned people all around the world. Due to subconscious teachings of black being inferior to white; light is good, dark is evil, etc., with an increase in darkness comes a higher prejudice against said person. When we mend discrimination with racism, we can see a crystal clear relationship. From passed up job opportunities to being denied service, black people secomb to most racial discrimination by far. This is not to leave out all minority race groups, especially indigenous people. They are sometimes viewed as drug addicts with no work ethic, this leading into not being thought of in opportunities that could better their quality of life.

Women are subjected to discrimination far too much in our day and age. Many of us do it subconsciously, whether it be feeling more comfortable with a male server, electrician, construction worker, etc. Women are seen to be less capable of certain tasks than men.

Some other people who experience discrimination are those of the LGBT+ community. Certain job titles still are not viewed as an appropriate place to express one’s homosexuality. In many occasions gay couples will be denied service from businesses due to strictly the fact that the consumers are gay.

Where?: Racism occurs all over the world, because of the social normality, for things such as skin colour, ethnicity, and religion. We are mainly discussing racism within America and Canada. America and Canada’s racist status quo remains unique and alarmingly oppressive. This racism is entirely based on skin-colour and one ideal image. One’s nationality is immaterial. In terms of discrimination, discrimination also happens all over the world and on a greater scale. Discriminatory traditions, policies, ideas, practices and laws exist in many countries, some having discrimination towards different groups more than other countries would. In some places, controversial attempts such as quotas have been used to benefit those who are believed to be current or past victims of discrimination

When?: Nobody knows when racism was birthed. In many cultures, dark skin is viewed to coordinate with poorness with the ideology that if you worked outside, you were poor and tanned. A spotlight shown on the cruelty of racism during the slave trade in the 17th century. Black people were used as slaves due to solely their skin colour. This ignited the flame of white power. Once slavery was claimed illegal in the late 1800’s that mindset didn’t die. Segregation showed the epitome of discrimination. Jobs were not given, seats were not sat in, schools were not attended to, etc., simply because of a colour.

  With many protests for equality throughout the 18th and 19th century including our modern “Black Lives Matter” movement, segregation was banned and minds were slowly but surely opening. However the view of black people of less than was not fully stripped. Plantations turned to prisons and beatings turned into “necessary action”. Police brutality formed such a movement. Today we can still witness discrimination against minority groups even though many rules and regulations have been put in place, there is still the fight for equal views and opportunities.

What?: Racism: the belief of some races being better than others and the actions resulting from that belief. Racism is not just saying offensive comments to one of a different cultural background but offensive to their community as a whole. Canada supposedly to be a very multicultural country is exposed to more occurences of racism than expected.

Discrimination: prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially around race, age or sex. Some might think racism and discrimination are the same thing, but in reality they are not. Discrimination targets an individual’s gender, sexual orientation age as well as race. Majority of people are exposed to discrimination such as groups of teenagers, women, LGBTQ and those of colour.

Why?: Racism and discrimination are seen as very common topics around the world, making them immune to some, but there is a reason why it happens. Racism has been brought from generation to generation, especially during the time when the europeans were colonizing different countries of different ethnic backgrounds. Not only is it a form of hate from old times but a stereotype of a certain race. Older generations bring their dislike and bias towards a certain or multiple races, and younger generations adapt to it. Stereotypes are similar in a way except the racism is not coming from a person you know but a large group of people who have thoughts about the certain race. For example saying asians can’t drive, but just because a person has been in a bad situation with one, doesn’t mean they are all bad drivers. Discrimination is similar in the sense of stereotyping a large group or having an opinion about them because everyone thinks its right. For example, some people think women should not work and just stay at home to take care of the children. Because of people being so influenced by what others of society think, racism and discrimination seems common in a way. Although there is no way to stop racism and discrimination since it will always be around especially with older generations, there is a way to educate the younger generations about the misuse of it. There is a large misuse of the word ‘racist’ and ‘discriminate’’ because some people do not know what the real definition of racism and discrimination is. Educating, and not labelling everything as racism and discrimination could be ways to have the terms not be so common.

Vision/Goal: The first step to demolishing racism and discrimination as a whole is to educate ourselves about this issue and to know the kind of effect that it can have on our society. Generations need to be raised and taught how to treat people equally and correctly or else we will never be able to grow and change this world-wide issue. Another reason is that we need to stop viewing each other as greater or superior to one another. The hope is that by doing things such as these, all people can live without fear, and instead with hope and love, however this can only be achieved as a society and not individuals. It will take a great amount of effort to demolish or at best decrease racism and discrimination from our society,

Background/issue: - what has caused the inequity? What have you identified as the inequity? Social inequality is linked to racial inequality, gender inequality, and wealth inequality. The way people behave socially, through racist or sexist practices and other forms of discrimination, tends to trickle down and affect the opportunities and wealth individuals can generate for themselves. Today in Canada we have legal protection for victims of discrimination and a constitutional guarantee of equality rights for all. Employees cannot be treated differently because of age – unless they are under 19, in which case different standards apply. Remember, the BC Human Rights Code does not permit employers to discriminate against employees based on personal characteristics – like age, race, religion or gender and other personal characteristics.

So, for example: Employers cannot refuse to hire you because of where you come from. Employers cannot fire you because you are pregnant. Employers cannot force you to retire because of your age. Employers cannot harass you sexually.

Human rights

Poverty

Poverty is the deprivation of common necessities such as food, clothing, shelter, and safe drinking water, all of which determine our quality of life. It may also include the lack of access to opportunities such a s education and employment which aid the escape from poverty and/or allow one to enjoy the respect of fellow citizens

Although one of their group members was missing, i found this presentation to be very educational and wee executed. I am happy to know that the world’s population living in extreme poverty has gone down by twenty-four percent in the last twenty-eight years. It disgusts me to find out that one seventh of Canada is living in poverty. It simply doesn’t make sense to me. We are labeled as a first world country yet we have over fourteen percent of our population living in conditions equivalent to those of third world countries. There is no excuse for Canada to allow Canadians to be limited to resources; a major factor in why so many are trapped in the poverty cycle.

LGBTQ

LGBTQ = Lesbian, gay , bisexual, Transgendered, Twin spirited, Queer, and Questioning

The LGBTQ is an initialism referring collectively to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender/transsexual people. In use since the 1990’s. the term lgbtq is an adoption of the initialism lab which itself started replacing the phase gay community which many within LGBT communities felt did not represent accurately all those to which it referred.

This presentation was executed very well. I personally am always extra attentive when Leon is presenting, as he always delivers his presentations with confidence and ensures to audience is not bored, which appreciated. Something that stuck with me from this presentation is that police officers used to raid gay bars simply to ensure that they knew nowhere was safe for them. To be living in constant fear only due to one’s sexuality is a state that I cannot fathom.

This topic is also what is wrote my human rights essay about:

LGBTQ+

By: Madison Neal

              Love is light. A saying rolled off the tongues of those blanketed buy its warmth, those who love fearlessly and freely, utterly and entirely welcomed to express it. But there is another flame of love, it’s as well, warm and bright, all though it’s punishing to reach and is guarded; bordered buy police badges and twisted metaphors, laws prohibiting anyone to bask in its beauty and mobs set to attack those who seek to. This love is denied to the LGBTQ+ community. During the 60’s and 70’s, more and more people were expressing their love for the same sex in a wave that unsettled and angered many civilians. Gay people had no safe space to love one another. Police often raided gay bars to ensure those inside knew that being who they truly were would never be okay. Gay marriage was illegal in Canada until July 20, 2005, and the U.S. until June 26, 2015. Even then it was frowned upon by a plethora of close minded people. Gay couples have been and still are denied service from businesses and are mistreated in society.

           The light of self love is also stripped from the category of transgender/two-spirited people. There has been reports of a transgender woman being shot down by a gunman in a car driving by, simply for appearing to be transgender. They have been and recently under Trump, still are denied to serve their country in the United States. These inequities endured by the community are only a sliver of the inhumane deeds excerpted on those in it. people are placed in conversion camps and cleansing therapy to this day, attempting to “fix” people whom are in no way broken, but rather different.

       A conception of wrongness associated with this topic is not a natural trait, it is taught by those who were also brainwashed at a young age to give love a shape that only fits between a man and a woman. Lack of exposure is the route to closed minds across the globe. As with anything, when something is never brought to light we cannot perceive it as normal, and to add on top of the weight of “abnormality” to such affection, it has been is deemed inappropriate in the past to execute in public, and has been despised when done in front of children. We can view this in separate generations. As protests and fights for equality by generations before the Millenials were held, much attention was brought to precisely how unjust the laws were surrounding the way of life of the LGBTQ+ community. Because of these protests and exposure Millennials grew up with a great decrease of censorship of the community and what kindness and care it obtained. This would birth people whom would use the likes of social media to debate and discuss with those still set in a different viewpoint. This paved the way for the next generation (Generation Z) to be flooded with exposure of the topic. Today we see television shows based around gay culture and multiple gay characters with many stories of all too real hurdles forced by a group of people to overcome, this includes shows for children; a notable step in progress given the utmost disgust portrayed around allowing children to be educated on any factor of the topic. This generation is growing up with LGBTQ+ role models whom they can confide in by merely clicking on a youtube video. The magic of the internet has been a crucial tool. With its gift just clicks away, my generation is forming in this world as one who is known to convey gay and transgender as anything but a choice. We can see transgender kids as young as five years of age embracing who they truly are. The origin of injustice was and will never be a feeling, it is and has always been lack of exposure accompanied by insulating purely negative notions to the people.

            My vision for the future of the LGBTQ+ community is that we can mould and raise people in our society and eventually all over the globe to be educated on the topic. Ignorance is born from withholding of knowledge. With minds filled with exposure of “gay culture” and all the bright unique traits of the community, I yearn for no individual to ever have a shred of fear when it comes to being oneself. I as a Catholic am very accepting and interactive with many members of the community, as many Christians overall are. However, I am aware of the closed of extreme religionists of Christianity do not feel the same way, due to what the bible says. I wish to change their way of thinking and  see those people be enlightened on the fact that the bible is filled with metaphors. There are heart-wrenching stories of people begging God not to make them gay, when in reality it is how God formed them and I believe that if god loves all of his children, than he will accept the very ones that he created.

           The constant lingering of danger due to one’s sexuality is that of atrocious. I envision a society where those of the community would feel safe regardless of any location, and that little boys and girls are not told to “man up” or “act like a lady”. Children’s brains are not at a stage of development equipped to completely know what they identify as. It is these social stereotypes that are another burden for those who come to the acceptation later in life that whom they were presenting to the world is but what they were told to be. I want to improve the quality of life for people who are only expressing what they feel in bars or at home, for them to be not just legally but socially free to show affection in public without crude stares or judgements. To witness schools implicate sexual education on both heterosexual and homosexual relationships, the children of the world are the future of it, and if we want to change the future it must be made a priority to train them to be accepting and understanding the complexity of all forms of love, as it is all in the end the same.

Racism and Discrimination

Racism is the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce and inherent superiority of a particular race. People with racist beliefs might hate certain groups of people according to their racial groups

In the case of institutional racism, certain racial groups may be denied rights or benefits, or get preferential treatment.

Discrimination is any action or behaviour that causes a person to be treated  in an unfair, hurtful and negative way. People may discriminate because they have a prejudice against someone or because they have a stereotype of that person.

People may discriminate without any intention to hurt someone but someone may still be hurt and disadvantaged by another person’s actions and behaviour. (racism is a belief, a set of values, an attitude — a group of assumptions that view and construct in a negative way a group of people used on their racial background.

My group presented on the topic of racism and discrimination, I feel our presentation went smoothly and i feel that the audience responded well to our multiple interviews of people’s encounters with racism and discrimination. Something i found interesting while doing research on this topic is that in many countries in Asia, lighter skin represents wealth, because if you work outside it means you have an underpaying job. SO if one is tan, it is a tell that they work outside and are therefor poor

Child Soldiers and Military Recruitment

War is reciprocal and violent application of force between hostile political entities aimed are bringing about a desired political end-state via armed conflict.

The military use of children takes three distinct forms: children can take direct part in hostilities (child soldiers), or they can be used in support roles such as porters, spies, messengers, look puts, and sexual slaves; or they can be used for political advantage either as human shields or in propaganda.

I admired this presentation for its projection and detail in knowledge. I also enjoyed the kahoot at the end. I found this to be a good strategy; letting us know there would be a kahoot at the end, and that the winner would earn a prize, because it kept the class engaged the entire time. Something that left me with a pit in my stomach is when the presenters explained how in some countries, military goes into villages and/or towns and forcefully strip able-bodied boys and sometimes girls away from everything they know to battle. I couldn’t imagine waking up one morning thinking my day is going to pan out as usual, only to be taken away from my family and friends and thrown into extreme danger. It is inhumane and revolting.

Violence in Relationships

Violence - is any act that results in or is likely to result in, physical, sexual, and psychological harm or suffering, including threats of such acts and coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether in public or private life.

This presentation was well done and knowledge on the subject I had not known before was brought to light. One thing that truly stood out to me wa the topic of the relations of the LGBTQ community and violence in relationships. Before this presentation i always thought of violence in relationships to me more often a male abuser towards a female, and sometimes a female abuser towards a male. It had never occured to me that the community are more likely to be subjected to an abusive situation in a relationship. I learned that this was due limited resources and lack of education upon these groups. The LGBTQ community is often excluded from the definition of relationship abuse because of their identity and lack of exposure.

Genocide

Genocide is the elimination of an entire group of people classified by race, religion, etc.

This groups presentation was also well executed. I found it interesting and surprising to hear of the multiple genocides that have taken place over the years, as far as my knowledge had reached before the presentation, there had only been two, i now know there were virtually triple that which were addressed in the presentation.

Extra notes:

Gender

Gender comprises a range of differences between men and women, extending from the biological to the social.

Biologically, the male gender is defined by reference to the presence of a Y-chromosome, and its absence in the female gender. However, there is debate as tot he extent that the biological difference has or necessitates differences in gender roles in society and on gender identity, which has been defined as “an individual’s self-conception as being male or female, as distinguished from actual biological sex.”

Homelessness

Homelessness is the condition and social category of people who lack housing, because they cannot afford, or are otherwise unable to maintain, regular, safe, and adequate shelter

[republicstandard]

Liberal Nationalism? The Hypocrisy of Yascha Mounk

Yascha Mounk is an interesting chap. A political scientist, author, and Harvard lecturer, Mounk is obsessed with populism- or rather, he is obsessed with ensuring that his peculiar idea of what populism means is adopted as objective truth.

"We're trying a historically unique experiment: Transforming a mono-ethnic, mono-cultural society into a multi-ethnic one. That can work out. I believe it will work out, but naturally this will provide social distortions." -Yascha Mounk

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Mounk is not a populist, he is a globalist and a liberal- which is absolutely fine by me, the West has been built on the friction between ideas and free expression. That is why we are not totalitarians. However, Mounk is also dishonest and seeks to conflate ideas that he does not like together under the umbrella of 'populism' and reduce 'nationalism' to being just the civic identity of all nation-states- provided that state is not named Israel, but we will come to that thorny business later. With all due credit to Mr. Mounk, he does have a book coming out so you can see why he is so prevalent in the mainstream media talking about his ideas. We should be grateful that his agent is so diligent and that he has been so forthcoming, as the results are illuminating indeed.

In an interview with Haaretz, Feb. 21, 2018, Mounk said:

"Today, we face a trilemma of nationalism, democracy, and globalization. You have to find a way to make those three work together because you cant get away from nationalism and you don't want to give up democracy and globalization.

The key, says Mounk with an ironic smile, is... to give people a feeling they have a control over their lives and that your own nation has control over its destiny.  In order for people to feel that they have to be convinced that they can live in a multi-ethnic and democratic society and still be better off materially and the liberal camp must learn how to embrace nationalism.

The idea used to be that we can get away from nationalism and substitute it with other things like social justice, and somehow people will learn to live without it. But when nationalism and democracy clash, nationalism wins."

This is a crucial part of understanding Mounk's perspective. He recognizes that some form of nationalism defeats democracy- but he is truly talking about two different kinds of nationalism in these three paragraphs. He begins with the idea of nationalism being an ever-present force, literally the glue that binds a nation together. He says that you cannot escape it, but that he doesn't want to give up on democracy and globalization. Well, I would suggest that globalization we can do well without and are in fact incompatible entirely with a concept of a nation- the very nature of free movement of people, free trade and free movement of capital requires that globalism dominates the rights of any nation-state or her people.

Mounk recognizes that the ethnic root of nations exists in a tangible way. He knows that the ethnic root of a people, this immortal tie forged over centuries, will always defeat a 'democratic' process that treats that ethnic identity poorly or is perceived to do so. We need only look at the rise in Black Identitarianism in the West to show this to be true- despite acquiring protected class status in legislation and not being discriminated against one iota by the democracy of the United States, the perception that this is so is enough for a wide-ranging ethnocentric movement that is immune from any accusation of racism thanks to the effect of the ideology of intersectional social justice on society at large.

Mounk smiles when he says that you have to give people the feeling of being in control of their own destiny- not that this is an inalienable right, not that people need this to be a free people, but that they only need to feel it is so. Again:

"In order for people to feel that they have to be convinced that they can live in a multi-ethnic and democratic society and still be better off materially and the liberal camp must learn how to embrace nationalism."

This is the reframe that Mounk is pushing towards. A liberal understanding of nationalism is, in reality, a co-opting of civic nationalism to be compliant with progressivism. To make this a reality, the frame of conversation will necessitate a re-definition of what nationalism actually is, away from the complex mix of ethnic identity and the civic identity that ethnicity defines for itself, and towards pure civics, the 'magic soil' which transforms every Turk into a German when his shoes touched the ground at Flughafen Dusseldorf and ingrained me with a thousand years of Balearic identity when I arrived here in Ibiza. What remains, the concept of a people who are identified more than simply the land they choose to live, the very real ethnic and racial bonds that exist between all humans to varying degrees in this great species called humanity, all this is to be swept up into a box marked 'populism' and there it will be spat at and denigrated for being racial bigotry with a political name.

In The New York Times, March 3rd Mounk wrote:

"There is a sizable number of Americans for whom the idea of the nation remains synonymous with whiteness and Christianity.

So long as nationalism is associated with one particular ethnic or religious group, it will serve to exclude and disadvantage others. The only way to keep the destructive potential of nationalism in check is to fight for a society in which collective identity transcends ethnic and religious boundaries — one in which citizens from all religious or ethnic backgrounds are treated with the same respect as citizens from the majority group."

'American' is both an ethnic identity and a civic status. If it was not an ethnic identity, then there would be no need for prefixes to describe the different races that are also American citizens, with all the same respects and rights as the majority group which are guaranteed under the Constitution of the United States. This being said, the nation of the United States is a former European colony, in the same way as South Africa and Australia. The American Dream is fundamentally a dream of European people, which through the civics of the American state defined by people of European culture and descent were eventually extended to all people of all creeds- but the idea is as fundamentally European in nature as the ideas of Aristophanes and Plato and Socrates are Hellenic. We cannot separate the development of civics from the people who created that civic identity, it's crazy to do so. The Aztecs had their own kind of civics particular to their culture that demanded human sacrifice, that was the practice of their citizenship. It sounds alien to us, but was human sacrifice just an idea that these people came up with in order to assure good harvests that they came to through scientific endeavor, or was it a product of generations of superstition and religion and culture?

The point is that it cannot be so that ideas are merely the product of a human mind, disassociated from everything that taught that mind how to think. Are there no Boers as a distinct ethnic identity? Do they not have a cultural identity? Ask any Boer and he will tell you he is a White African. Is it the destructive potential of nationalism that threatens this minority group with genocide and destruction, or is it the racist form of Stalinism adhered to by the ANC that demands the death of Whites and the expropriation of their lands by force? Mounk recognizes that you cannot transcend ethnicity through social programming- the past few decades of world history puts the lie to that idea. In this way, Mounk sees that to achieve his utopian ideals we must all be deconstructed and returned to tabula rasa. We will come back to the impossibility of a blank slate culture later on.

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In The Guardian, March 4th, Mounk writes:

"Politicians need to recover the will and the imagination to ensure that the fruits of globalization and free trade are distributed much more equally. And citizens – which is to say all of us – need to work even harder to build an inclusive patriotism that protects vulnerable minorities against discrimination while emphasizing what unites rather than what divides us."

The fruits of globalization are rotten. You can get drunk on fermented fruits, even squirrels know how to do that. Eventually though you sober up with a cracking headache, nausea, and you promise to yourself that you will never do something so stupid again. Like the alcoholic, Mounk staggers back to the bar for another pint of Open Borders and demands that you also drink from the same cursed cup. What fruits of globalization need to be distributed? Wealth? Is it wealth redistribution you seek, Yascha? Is it cultural enrichment? If this is your end you will need something stronger than just globalist evangelism. Mounk again deploys his technique of redefinition. Patriotism is no longer attachment to your homelands but is in fact the corruption of patriotic ideals entirely. Patriotism is already inclusive, and is available to all people. In America it is expressed already in the pledge of allegiance, in serving your fellow citizens as equals. That is the civic nationalist system implemented by European people's virtually everywhere they go. The vulnerable minorities are not defined by Mounk as to why they are vulnerable, but it is surely not the fault of an overtly civic nationalist society which proclaims 'We The People' if some people do not follow those ideals and feel excluded. There is no framework in which an entirely individualist sense of national identity exists.

As the late Christopher Hitchens noted when :

"For a writer to become an American is to subscribe of his own free will to a set of ideas and principles and to the documents that embody them in written form, all the while delightedly appreciating that the documents can and often must be revised, so that the words therefore constitute, so to say, a work in progress.

This was all rather well set out in the passport that I immediately went to acquire… Human history affords no precedent or parallel for this attainment. On the day that I swore my great oath, dozens of Afghans and Iranians and Iraqis did the same.”

Hitchens recognized that he and his other new Americans were subscribing not a monolithic ideology of Americanism, but a constitution that is a living system born out of the ideals of the Founding Fathers. As great a mind as Hitchens recognized that to adopt the American identity is to pay fealty to the ideas of the American people as a people in their lands as a requirement of entry through the swearing of an oath, while also taking part in that conversation as a new and welcome citizen. It is a beautiful thing, and a universal human experience in all lands where free people together determine their story.

This concept Mounk espouses of a more "inclusive" patriotism is therefore an abuse of language. It is subversive and assumes that rather than the newer arrival adopting the customs and ways of their new nation, the nation must bend to the will of the minority. That is madness and a recipe for utter annihilation of everything that is remotely good and pure in the world- and I mean pure as in ideals, not racial purity or anything like that. Mounk already believes: "There is a sizable number of Americans for whom the idea of the nation remains synonymous with whiteness and Christianity." This is what he hates. This is what he wants to divorce from the idea of patriotism itself, that the United States which was built on the values of Europeans and Christianity, for better or worse, must be torn down, for it is evil, though why it is so is not shown.

From Slate, March 8th.

"From Hugo Chávez in Venezuela to Jaroslaw Kaczyński in Poland and from Viktor Orbán in Hungary to Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, many populists around the world have remained sufficiently popular for a long enough span of time to concentrate vast powers in their own hands. Trump has some important commonalities with them. Like them, for example, he is a master at riling up his base with lofty promises of big improvements and urgent warnings about imminent dangers."

Mounk goes on to tar Orbán as a xenophobe, populism -regardless of stripe- as merely a factor of luck, and for some reason invokes the long-dead Chavez as the cause of all Venezuelan ills. What is interesting is what Mounk ultimately decides populism really is.

"While other populists also like to stir the pot with outrageous claims, the bulk of their rhetoric is focused on one goal and one goal only: to cast themselves as the only legitimate spokesmen of the people—and portray their nation as being under siege from both internal and external enemies. This is what Erdogan is consciously doing when he calls all critical journalists terrorists, what Orbán is doing when he claims that Soros has hatched a plot to make Hungary subservient, and what Kaczyński is trying to achieve when he insinuates that Jews are telling lies to use the Holocaust as a weapon against Poles."

Populism is not an ideology that is restricted to right wing or left wing politics, as Mounk recognizes. What Mounk does here though is reveal his own agenda through by what he considers to be most abhorrent about Erdogan, Orbán, and Kaczyński. The Turk Erdogan is bad because he does not like the critical press -and the press definitely has a point against Erdogan and his regime, though he is far from the Islamist he is painted to be by some he is still Ottomanist and authoritarian. I would probably agree with Mounk on his criticism of Erdogan alone, and I suspect that this is a deliberate tactic on Mounk's part. By including Erdogan in a description of populism also featuring Orbán and Kaczyński the term is broadened to include all manner of unpalatable ideas, and through this method, Mounk may attack President Trump as not only a populist, but also as an unsuccessful one.

"Far from showcasing the strengths of American institutions, the past years have demonstrated that a rank amateur can push them close to breaking point." My @Slate cover story assesses how dangerous Trump would be if he learned on the job. Please read.https://t.co/vLkmn7bsad

— Yascha Mounk (@Yascha_Mounk) March 8, 2018

Mounk makes no mention of Chavez at this point, perhaps the concentration of power that took place in Venezuela trampling on the press and the courts does not matter- after all, Chavez was a leftist. In any case, Mounk moves swiftly on to defend George Soros for being George Soros, and then on to lie about the nature of the debate in Poland about the Holocaust. I've already covered in detail my response to the smear campaign conducted by the Ruderman Family Foundation and Jewish journalists like Bradley Burston of Haaretz but once again for those in the back- Poland is not denying the Holocaust. Poland is not accusing Jews of anything- the same Poles take their share of responsibility on an cultural level already, that some of their kin aided the Nazis. So did some Jews. This is not a matter of debate, the records prove it.

What Poland has attempted to do -wrongly in my opinion- is to prevent the accusation that the Polish state had involvement in the Holocaust which is, unfortunately, an implicit association with the phrase 'Polish Death Camp' or such like. The attitudes from the Jewish media and the literary world towards Poles has been objectively racist for years but this does not matter to Mounk. Mounk recognizes very well that ethnic differences matter in this conversation- it is at the crux of his argument against it, as illuminated by his use of three nations that are essentially ethnonational in character, by virtue of their ethnic homogeneity in Poland and Hungary and the suzerainty of the Turk in the land that bears the name of their people.

When Mounk accuses Poland of accusing Jews of lying about the Holocaust, this is Mounk's own ethno-nationalist feelings coming to the fore. He is a partisan, a Jewish-American raised in Germany who rejected the German Philo-Semitism while claiming to also not feel Jewish nor German. With his negative experiences of being an outsider having a great impact on his identity, Mounk wrote

"I grew impatient with the endless complications of being a German Jew. I wanted nothing more than to be seen, finally, as an individual. And so, despite everything I loved about Germany, and unlike so many other German Jews, I decided to leave...  My identity is no longer that of a Jew or a German. It is that of a seeker who has found; that of a stranger who has come to be at home; that of, simply and immeasurably, a New Yorker."

With startlingly Messianic words, Mounk explicitly rejects his Jewish identity with his deliberately written words, and expresses his natural and ingroup preferences towards his ethnic kin with his unintended missteps, thereby proving once and for all that his entire thesis is built on sand. It is an idea that lives in a vacuum of fantasy liberalism, that if we just teach people the correct manner of behaving, then all racism will evaporate- meanwhile Mounk cannot resist attacking another race of people for the perceived slight against the race of people he claims to feel no affiliation for. If Mounk was interested in the generation of a new liberalism that co-opts the positive aspects of civic nationalism and does away with the old and divisive ideas of creed and nationhood, of actual populism, then his lens would be universally critical and an engine of pure analysis, based in the spirit of academic inquiry and the search for an ultimate truth. I would still disagree with Mounk on those terms, but I could at least respect him for his opinion. This is not what Mounk has created. Mounk denies himself.

From the Haaretz interview again:

"On only his second, short visit to Israel, Mounk admits that he knows very little about the country and that as a political scientist, he prefers not to analyze the Israeli situation with the same tools he employs to analyze other countries.

In any discussion in which it is mentioned, Israel takes over. Once you mention Israel, you cant just do so in passing, he says. It can’t just be another example. There is such a complexity and so many emotions when dealing with Israel that either you write 20 pages or nothing at all. For a political scientist who is not an expert on Israel, the best option is nothing at all."

Well, that is very interesting, a Jewish academic who refuses to hold Israel to the same standard that he advocates for all other nations. Yascha Mounk claims no loyalty to Israel or even Judaism;

" Being free to construct my own identity has had an unexpected effect: I’ve come to realize that being Jewish is not particularly important to me after all. Sure, I enjoy “Seinfeld” and a whitefish bagel. But is that enough to make me “culturally” a Jew? I’m not convinced."

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Yet, when asked to apply the lens of his apparently expert knowledge in political science to Israel by a Jewish journalist while standing in Israel he refuses to do so, claiming the complexity of a nation that is theoretically less than a century old is too complex for anyone who is not an expert on Israel. But Yascha, I thought we were moving away from such backward ideas as populism or ethnicity? If we are, what makes Israel exempt from such a conversation if we are criticising the ethnic-pluralism of Poland and Hungary and Turkey- can you not take a guess at Israel? Are you an expert on the politics of Poland and Hungary and Turkey and Venezuela? Is it not the very antithesis of 'Liberal Nationalism' to build a giant wall to keep one particular people inside, separate from the rest? I do not hold a PhD in Government from Harvard University, perhaps there is some light that Mounk can shine on this apparent double standard for me.

It is my suspicion that Mounk recognizes that applying the same critique to Israel that he applies to other nations would be uncomfortable for him. Why is this uncomfortable? Because contrary to his own belief that he has created his own identity the truth is that this individual identity is based on our understanding of who we are and where we come from, as a people. The cultures we are raised in are extensions of this ethnic identity, the people who are mixed race experience a twin-cultural formation of identity also- it is utterly inescapable, and to deny it as Mounk does in the face of his own actions that disprove his ideas is simply bizarre. He is flying in the face of the observed reality of all human beings, falling into Lockean tabula rasa, ideas.

This idea about our existence that claims that we are all born into this world with no inherent tendency towards actions or behaviors, which is why Rousseau claimed that mankind had to learn warfare. The reality is that in some ways we are blank-slates and in some ways, we are not. We are blank slates as infants learning how to speak, to think, to draw, but the slate itself is not universal to all people, we each bear a slightly different ‘slate’ to begin with. That is the product of our genetics, directly from your parentage and further back in time from the rest of your ethnicity whatever that may be. There are of course certain traits that are shared by all humans, but over millennia of separation, we have adapted to our environments to produce babies with a marginally different slate to one another.

We know that this is so, even within our own distinct groups. In England in the 15th Century Sir John Fortescue wrote;

His igitur, Princeps, dum Adolescens es, et Anima tua velut Tabula rasa, depinge eam, ne in futurum ipsa Figuris minoris Frugi delectabilius depingatur

“Therefore, Prince, whilst you are young and your mind is as it were a clean slate, impress on it these things, lest in future it be impressed more pleasurably with images of lesser worth."

Teach the young well. That is all that is meant by Locke and Fortescue and Ibn Sina and the sages, who had no concept of what an ethnically diverse nation would even be. It is a universal understanding of humanity that we have known for centuries if not millennia and that has been proven by behavioral psychologists using twin studies and so forth that there is no such thing as a blank slate save for that slate which is contextualized by the people who made it. The blank slate of my people is an ethnic British infant. The blank slate of the Maori people is a Maori infant. Are the two completely interchangeable? Science tells us that they are not. Why does Mounk claim that an entire culture can be replaced with a blank slate ideology that we all decide to adopt en masse? Does that idea not necessitate authoritarianism and force?

There is nothing wrong in being any race or mix of races. There is nothing wrong with choosing to leave your own culture in search of another, to forge a new identity- but this will never be an identity forged of tabula rasa. My children will be English and Polish and raised in Spain- but they will not be 'Spanish' in anything other than a purely civic sense The ethnically distinct Ibicenco and Catalan people who are my neighbors recognize this. These citizens of Spain are proud Spaniards by and large, but do they not also recognize that they are not Galicians or Andalusians? The Andalusians and all the other peoples that make up Spain are of a similar mind- is that populism? Is that ethnonationalism? No, Spain itself is a civic concept, recognizing the distinct ethnicities that make up the state does not diminish the state in any manner- it is an enhancement, or so the theory goes and many Catalan separatists will disagree with me, and that is their prerogative- the very concept of a self-determined Catalan state has come around from the feeling within Catalonia that the interests of this self-identifying ethnic group would be better served if they governed themselves. Are they ethnonationalists? Racists? Bigots? It is not so hard to imagine then that even within an outwardly homogenous looking nation there are ethnic differences that transcend the ability for civic nationalist ideas to serve.

The point is that ethnic identity is simply reality. It is not bigoted or racist to notice this reality, and we must accept this reality if we as a species are to prosper and survive on Earth together. Mounk extrapolates blank slate theory and applies it to entire nations comprised of millions of people bearing very different identities on a fundamental level. In his future we are to be re-educated. We have to scrap the past, force all people to begin with a new blank slate, and define afresh what identity means.

"One problem that Israel does share with other countries, he notes, is that its history tends to bog down any conversation about its present and future. When confronting populism and nationalism, dealing with history is problematic. Especially as the migrant citizens don't have the same history, Mounk says.

One solution may be dwelling a little less on history. To change the narrative, he says, we have to be talking about the present and future of our national identities."

Yascha Mounk recognizes the importance of history but wishes to persist in the chalkboard globalism that he perpetuates through his role as Executive Director at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. The methods and ideas that Mounk spreads through the Guardian, the New York Times, Slate and Haaretz and no doubt at his Harvard classes are thus ignorant of history (and we know the fate of those who ignore history) and, worst of all, betray a perverse identity for me but not for thee attitude. Though Mounk is impatient to be seen as an individual, he is a hypocrite because he himself rejects individualism. He wishes to co-opt nationalism for progressivism which I would be remiss in failing to note would be a phenomenally dangerous idea. The concept of a national identity solely based on hard-left neo-Marxist ideology is one of the most heinous and wicked ideas I can imagine. Even so, Mounk recognizes he is to some extent identified with America, and Germany by the rite of his country of adoption and birth respectively, and Israel by virtue of his ethnic heritage.

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Therefore, the ideas he proposes are based on hypocrisy, they are based on lies, and they are designed to strip the identity from others that Mounk feels was denied to himself. “So long as nationalism is associated with one particular ethnic or religious group, it will serve to exclude and disadvantage others.” Yascha, either you advocate for globalism for all, including open borders for Israel, or you are the worst kind of racist and a hypocrite for demanding that these practices be employed in everywhere except Israel.If this is not the case and you believe Israel should receive special treatment, then why will you not say so?

I ask you Yascha Mounk- why is Hungary a xenophobic state by your own definition but Israel is not?

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