#we are so much more than the racists that live here

[kataraslove]

I just stumbled across your acc and I gotta say, I agree with alotta ur takes

Ur sooo well spoken and I really enjoy reading your thoughts and opinions

Katara is one of my favorite characters and it makes me really happy to see someone appreciate her and her writing

Ngl a lot of atla fans r lowkey braindead so ur acc is pretty refreshing

Thanks for posting!! 🩷

thank you! 🩷 your words are too kind. i appreciate it.

i did mention this before, but this blog stemmed kind of entirely out of spite. i was sick and tired of fandom on here telling me that there was only one way to interpret and enjoy my favourite character, dictating who i could or could not ship her with and how much of a stan that made me. it’s not an experience just unique to the atla fandom, of course. it’s becoming something more apparent nowadays especially, the ways in which multiple readings and interpretations of a character is heavily discouraged by fandom in favour of just one.

it’s baffling how, for so many years, there was a strict binaric interpretation of katara’s character, with 0 being non-canon and 1 being completely in favour of all things canon. either you had to vehemently agree with everything that bryke wrote for katara’s within atla and post-canon, to the point where i have seen people defend the lack of statues of her as “oh, she probably didn’t want one anyway,” (NO!!) or you had to have deep-rooted anger and rejection for all things that were done to her story, in the guise of katara deserving better.

katara does deserve better narratively, but NOT in the ways that the tumblr fandom thinks she should have. not in the ways that she should be ambassador to the fire nation, or become firelady (a racist depiction in fanon and nothing but a decorative title in canon) and live out the rest of her life by zuko’s side, serving and prioritizing zuko’s nation.

“but wouldn’t it be empowering if katara sat on the throne of her oppressors and got to dictate - “ no. it’s not. stop advocating for that type of ending for women from oppressed and marganized groups. stop acting like that is the ideal future that katara wanted this whole time, that ruling as part of a foreign monarchy that decimated your people and your culture is the ultimate threshold for liberation.

i’ve seen people who claim to take a doylist perspective for critique of atla (read: kataang)’s writing completely lose all comprehension when it comes to critically assessing post-canon zutara. by that i mean, if we continue with the writing direction that we saw for all of the female atla characters in the sequel series, a zutara endgame would position katara in a worse outcome than she got narratively. but you tell anyone that and it’s an instant “zuko would have given her 10 statues!!”

but most importantly, nothing has radicalized me more over this year than seeing the “katara deserves better (in the form of zuko)” crowd, the same crowd who is currently dreading any form of fixing or retcons from avatar studios in upcoming content, defend the hell out of natla katara’s writing. the very same people who were praising katara’s arc to the stars, stating that it was nearly complete until the two grown men decided to pair her up with aang and ruined all at the end.

well, what about the group of zutara shippers in the natla writer’s room who handed her everything in the narrative, who removed her flaws, her anger, her compassion, who stripped her down to everything except hope, all in the name so that she wouldn’t appear unlikable to audiences. i mean, that tremendously backfired for them, because now the young actress who plays katara is getting hate spewed at her for failing to portray katara interestingly, when the problem has always been the shit writing.

anyway, i appreciate this message! glad i could be of service and it’s nice that you’re a zuko fan who ships kataang! lots of people who love zuko do.

“a lot of atla fans are braindead” LMAO you can say that again!!!

[jewreallythinkthat]

You know I actually don't think we talk enough about the notions of irredeemability and mortification of the flesh which is so intrinsic to a lot of the left wing, especially (and I know people won't like this but it's true), ex-christian atheists, generally younger Millennials and Gen Z.

I first noticed it in fandom spaces, and it's become even more apparent since October 7th.

In fandom spaces, there is a belief that a character is either fully justified in their actions or completely irredeemable. Murder, assault, abuse is OK if it is directed at the deserving character. I've watched people justify characters being assaulted into heir own home and then accuse those calling out the abuse of being racist because the perpetrators was not white. The victim was not allowed any sympathy (objectively, also this person literally followed a request from their sister to not tell people where the sister was. That was the crime...) and the assault was justified by progressive members of the left because their personally had decided the crime was punishable by violence.

More recently, they have turned against queer characters, belittled the queer experience because nothing could ever make up for the behaviour of people decades ago in a much more homophobic world. It really is so very recent that people could be openly queer safely - laws protecting people's rights do not mean the people are safe and I think a lot of leftists seem to forget this. I, a queer man, made plenty of "gay jokes" at school to avoid being outed (like a lot of people who have come out since we left school) as an act of self preservation. I'm not proud of it but it was something that happened when I was a young teenager and I acknowledge that. According to a huge swathe of the left, I can never be forgiven for this, and I must spend the rest of my life repenting.

The revertion to these puritanical, medieval beliefs on sin - that we are never able to atone for mistakes of the past is a very, very, Christian notion which has permeated the left and is actively spread by a lot of people will push it in one breath and then decry everything Christianity has ever done in the next.

Since October 7ths, the Jews (they often say "Israelis" but it's so clear that they mean "Jews" - as shown by the number of times people accidentally say "Jew" and then try and correct themselves to "Zionists" or "Israelis") have become the ones who embody irredeemability. Nothing we do will be enough to make up for the sin of being Jewish. The left has become a whirlwind of conspiracy and (((they))) are at the centre of every single one.

I mentioned the mortification of the flesh before. There is an obsession in the left of self-flagellation. That because there is suffering in part of the world, then those in others parts must suffer as penitence. Israeli peace activists are only peaceful if they die in the pursuit of the destruction of Israel; peace activists fighting in Israel for Palestinian rights and the establishment of Palestine alongside Israel are not doing enough because committed the crime of being born in Israel and they must suffer to make up for it; people in "The West" are not allowed to have any enjoyment of anything until the suffering deemed most important by the Left has ceased.

Physical suffering, self-immolation, death in pursuit of The Cause has become the most pure one can be. This is identical to early Christians, it's just that The Cause is no longer Jesus but is Palestine (at the moment). Forgoing your own needs will not help end the war but people will do it to demonstrate their commitment rather than putting in the effort to push for sustainable and feesable solutions.

The strands of puritan Christianity that are twisted into the social justice of The Left are many, and people do not like to think or acknowledge them because that would imply Christianity has affected them, but heres the thing. If you live in any country which has been around a significant time and was, literally at ANY point a theocracy, then the beliefs of the religion that ruled the country will be infused into the culture there. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just how society evolves. Turning a blind eye to the influence of Christianity on countries like the US, UK, Canada, lot of Europe is willful ignorance and historical revisionism. The Left should be better than this but instead, it has decided that we are born into the sin of the crimes of the country we were born in and must atone for them for the rest of time, but anything other than physical suffering and death will never be enough.

[manaosdeuwu]

they come and preach to us about 'argentina is white' 'argentina is racist' and don't look at their own history & present. we know better than anyone about how strong racism is here!! those affected by it live through it every day, you can easily see it in your day to day life and we learn about most of the genocides at school. we have the biggest jewish community in Latin America, a big muslim community, many people of different native tribes, afroargentines, etc. all of this data is easy to find with a quick research. you're not fucking helping by reproducing white supremacists discourse. who do you think benefits from the 'white argentina' idea?

[idiosyncraticrednebula]

Even since Michael's heavenly ascend, not just the music industry but, quite frankly, the entertainment industry as a whole has been left with a massive void that I don't believe will be fulfilled in the near future or ever again. That man had a star power equivalent to three Galactuses at their most powerful. You will never witness someone like that ever again, not in this lifetime nor the next one. He was and still is one of a kind.

[fursasaida]

This article is from 2022, but it came up in the context of Palestine:

Here are some striking passages, relevant to all colonial aftermaths but certainly also to the forms we see Zionist reaction taking at the moment:

Over the decade I lived in South Africa, I became fascinated by this white minority [i.e. the whole white population post-apartheid as a minority in the country], particularly its members who considered themselves progressive. They reminded me of my liberal peers in America, who had an apparently self-assured enthusiasm about the coming of a so-called majority-minority nation. As with white South Africans who had celebrated the end of apartheid, their enthusiasm often belied, just beneath the surface, a striking degree of fear, bewilderment, disillusionment, and dread.

[...]

Yet these progressives’ response to the end of apartheid was ambivalent. Contemplating South Africa after apartheid, an Economist correspondent observed that “the lives of many whites exude sadness.” The phenomenon perplexed him. In so many ways, white life remained more or less untouched, or had even improved. Despite apartheid’s horrors—and the regime’s violence against those who worked to dismantle it—the ANC encouraged an attitude of forgiveness. It left statues of Afrikaner heroes standing and helped institute the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which granted amnesty to some perpetrators of apartheid-era political crimes.

But as time wore on, even wealthy white South Africans began to radiate a degree of fear and frustration that did not match any simple economic analysis of their situation. A startling number of formerly anti-apartheid white people began to voice bitter criticisms of post-apartheid society. An Afrikaner poet who did prison time under apartheid for aiding the Black-liberation cause wrote an essay denouncing the new Black-led country as “a sewer of betrayed expectations and thievery, fear and unbridled greed.”

What accounted for this disillusionment? Many white South Africans told me that Black forgiveness felt like a slap on the face. By not acting toward you as you acted toward us, we’re showing you up, white South Africans seemed to hear. You’ll owe us a debt of gratitude forever.

The article goes on to discuss:

"Mau Mau anxiety," or the fear among whites of violent repercussions, and how this shows up in reported vs confirmed crime stats - possibly to the point of false memories of home invasion

A sense of irrelevance and alienation among this white population, leading to another anxiety: "do we still belong here?"

The sublimation of this anxiety into self-identification as a marginalized minority group, featuring such incredible statements as "I wanted to fight for Afrikaners, but I came to think of myself as a ‘liberal internationalist,’ not a white racist...I found such inspiration from the struggles of the Catalonians and the Basques. Even Tibet" and "[Martin Luther] King [Jr.] also fought for a people without much political representation … That’s why I consider him one of my most important forebears and heroes,” from a self-declared liberal environmentalist who also thinks Afrikaaners should take back government control because they are "naturally good" at governance

Some discussion of the dynamics underlying these reactions, particularly the fact that "admitting past sins seem[ed] to become harder even as they receded into history," and US parallels

And finally, in closing:

The Afrikaner journalist Rian Malan, who opposed apartheid, has written that, by most measures, its aftermath went better than almost any white person could have imagined. But, as with most white progressives, his experience of post-1994 South Africa has been complicated. [...]

He just couldn’t forgive Black people for forgiving him. Paradoxically, being left undisturbed served as an ever-present reminder of his guilt, of how wrongly he had treated his maid and other Black people under apartheid. “The Bible was right about a thing or two,” he wrote. “It is infinitely worse to receive than to give, especially if … the gift is mercy.”

[creatingblackcharacters]

“Why’s she so rude?” (She’s Not)- Stereotypes, pt2

So I'm sure that you all thought I was going to give a blow-by-blow list of "visual stereotypes to avoid". I'm going to be honest here, I thought about it, and figured it would be redundant. My page already includes sensitivity on depicting Black people. So instead, I'm going to focus on stereotypical "character" concepts, so that you can 1) not write it in your stories and/or 2) recognize it in media (fiction and reality!) and in life!

Two major resources: the Jim Crow Museum website is an EXCELLENT resource to understand the imagery of antiblack racism in U.S. history and society. The other, White Tears, Brown Scars by Ruby Hamad. The book focuses on the many racist stereotypes projected onto women of color and how that purposeful, systemic negative perception of us bleeds into every aspect of our lives- specifically by white women/white feminists who believe that they are not contributing to said oppression.

I'll start with Black women, just because I’m passionate about it (obviously) and there are so many things I wish I had and hadn’t seen growing up. We deserve better by the year of our lord 2024.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: mention of sexual assault, assault

Misogynoir

What I want everyone to understand, before I get into this, is the concept of intersectionality, and more specifically, misogynoir. Misogynoir is the specific type of contempt and prejudice that Black women face at the intersection of race and gender. I say this because you might read these things and go “oh, as a woman, I experience these things!” I get it, but I want you to PAUSE, and remember, that right now, we are talking about Black women’s experiences. And those will often be different, due to that intersection of identities. And that understanding will have an effect on how you understand (and thus, write) those experiences.

The Jezebel

The link goes into much deeper detail, but the Jezebel is the idea that a Black woman or girl who is sexual is somehow “fast”, “salacious”, “a hoe”, “driven by desire/doesn’t understand purity”, and at its worst, unable to be r*ped/a victim because she is less valuable yet somehow inherently seductive to men.

This gets thrown around CONSTANTLY in media and life for Black women (my first experience of treated like I was ‘fast’ was when I was like… twelve?) One major, visible example is Megan Thee Stallion. Meg has a college degree, she likes anime, she’s a brilliant rapper, and has an entire personality and struggles she’s shared… But she also likes to dress scantily clad and have sex. By doing those things, she ‘lessened in value’. And because of this, when she was shot at and assaulted, even Black people questioned her character, rather than understanding that she could have been anyone, and she still wouldn’t have deserved to be assaulted. She's not allowed to be multi-faceted; she "brought it on herself".

Black girls and women who happen to take charge of their own sexuality, to the discomfort of society, are treated as Jezebels- as whores. Think about it- if one of Taylor Swift's recent boyfriends shot at her, would the media question her value or her word? Question her equivalently high ‘body count’?

Question how you write your Black woman- she can enjoy sex! She can be sexy! We love to see it! But if you're punishing her specifically, or judging her within the narrative, versus your other characters who are allowed to safely explore and act upon their sexuality… Check your judgment! Why do you feel the way you do about this character? Why do you think that your Black character is the one that should be judged for her actions. Would you feel this way if it were a nonblack character?

The Sapphire/Angry Black Woman

Ohohoho, I have infinite amounts of feelings about this one.

This is the "sassy Black friend", the "aggressive Black boss", “step on me angry mommy”, the one who does the z formation and makes everyone "uncomfortable". She’s not allowed to be confident, assertive, or self-assured- she’s arrogant, rude, and aggressive.

I discussed it in part one, but I'll reemphasize it: your Black woman doesn't have to be an ‘Angry Black Woman’ in order to be angry! Just like any other human being on the planet, we are allowed to be mad. (In my honest opinion, we have a lot to be mad about, but I digress 😅)

If the only character that ever gets angry is your Black character, I want you to consider why. What is she angry at? Was this something you wanted the reader to understand or empathize with? Are we supposed to disagree? How does everyone around her treat her anger? Is her anger righteous? Is she always shut down or dismissed for it? Is it only meant to defend her friends, but never herself? Does the narrative suggest that it’s only good in use of others and not herself? Would this be the same reaction if one of the nonblack characters was angry? Is this something you did on purpose?

Very often, we're called 'angry Black women/girls' to invalidate our emotions. My therapist once said anger is a protective emotion. We might be hurt, overstimulated, sad, depressed, frightened, anxious… But we are often not allowed the grace of others digging deeper to see that. Even if the other characters do not understand her anger, even if her motives are not meant to be understood at the moment… you as the writer should be aware. But if every time it’s time to show anger or upset, it’s your Black character… consider why this is the one you thought would best convey that message, and how your Black readers might feel seeing that this character (who may not even be the ‘bad guy’) is the one that is ‘only’ angry. No other development, no other emotions, just… there to be mad.

I take this one to heart, as someone who feels very passionately about things… this is one of those things where I wish, in life and in media, people would have more grace for Black women. We're human, too. We have feelings, too.

The Mammy

This one isn’t as visually blatant anymore in media as it was in the past (like every Mammy doesnt look like Aunt Jemima), but you may have seen this one as "the mommy figure". The "lesbian that parents the silly gay boys". The one that’s always encouraging the ship of the white boys, but never the one allowed to be in the ship (especially when her ship is canon!)

A good example of this was how people expected Jessica Drew from ATSV to be "more loving" to Gwen, rather than the mentor and boss she was (plus, as a Black woman with a Black mother… trust and believe, she was quite direct and gentle). And in comparison to her counterpart, white man Peter B. Parker, was decried far worse for similar detrimental actions.

The Mammy often serves in opposition to the Jezebel and Sapphire/Angry Black Woman. What makes the Mammy particularly annoying is that it implies that the only good Black woman character is a ‘nice’, demure, unthreatening, homely, motherly figure whose job it is to make sure to center the (usually) white ones. The Mammy is expected to coddle everyone, to her own detriment. She's a ‘good Black’ because she causes no issue, raises no fuss, never shows a negative feeling, knows that she has to ‘be strong’ but to always defer because the white characters know best. She’s ‘not a threat’, and that’s why she’s ‘allowed’ to be around. We shouldn’t have to be those things in order for our stories to be heard and understood, in order to be empathized with or treated like someone of value.

The Strong Black Woman

If I never hear this phrase again in my life, if we eradicate it from future generations for Black girls and women, I'll cry of joy lmao. I hate it, and it's not for the reasons most nonblack people would expect. Lord, this one. Anyway. The ‘strong Black woman’ is meant to protect everyone, no help needed! Whenever something is wrong and we all need a pickup, here she comes to ‘let me do it’ and everything is going to be okay! She did all the necessary suffering so that your characters don't have to! She can sweep in and save the day!

Now here's the dissonance kicks in. This one on its surface probably sounds like a good thing. She's a hero! She’s resilient! She's great! Who wouldn't want to be superwoman? Who wouldn't want to reject being a love interest, all women are always love interests! Let us be the badass that kicks ass and shows the men what for! Who wouldn’t want that, 24/7?!

The answer: US. 👍🏾🤣

This is a long, separate conversation on its own, but we have to understand that Black women (women of color, really) and White women do not always share the same end goals and understanding of "strong woman character" or even feminism. We certainly aren't always the love interest. Very usually not, in fact. We are always pushed to the side. We are already the hero in our lives, we're already the "strong woman".

Not everyone yearns to be the Singular Hero who will Fix It All as many of us are already expected to do. It's exhausting having to swallow your own needs for everyone else all the time, especially when it's suggested that you have no value otherwise if you don't. Heroism is Exhausting, and it's something worth looking into when you’re characterizing your Black girls and women. I’m not saying that we can’t be strong! We are, and it’s impressive! But I also want us to add some nuance to that strength, the way we would for any other character. What it means to have community, rather than to do it all alone. How even if she wants to be the hero (and that’s okay! That’s fine!) how it would still wear on her. Surrounding your Black girl character with unconditional support, to have a lover that actually wants to pull some weight- that's something many of us actually would like to see, because we're usually shafted to the side as 'someone who can do it all herself' (in order to hide that no one thinks we need or are deserving of the help).

It's okay to let your Black woman and girls show weakness, to rest, to be taken care of! It's not "less feminist" to accept that we're humans that need help and can't carry it all, too. That it’s okay to want to feel valued and protected. Because god knows, I wish I didn’t grow up strong and resilient, I wish I grew up knowing that the world cared that I was safe.

Standards of Beauty

These standards are not the same! I've mentioned it before in my lesson on skin tones, but very often when we think of "beauty", it’s easy to fall into the idea of whiteness. Pale skin, thin hair textures, etc. If those are our existing standards of beauty, then it doesn’t matter what any of us look like- we’re ugly! When I was in high school, I remember a classmate saying that Swedish people were the most beautiful people because of "white hair and pale skin". Without even meaning to, that guy basically said everyone darker than a stack of loose leaf printer paper was ugly by proxy of not being Nordic White (no matter how pretty they actually might be!!) 🤣

It’s also of note that whiteness/paleness tends to be connected with innocence and cleanliness in western culture, while blackness/darkness tends to be considered dirty, sinful, fearful. Now, while the origin of this idea may not be racist itself, when you spend hundreds of years implying that Blackness is bad- to the point that, in the U.S. they came up with an entire slur one step past “negro” (meaning ‘Black’) to deem you less than- it’s hard to say that the societal connotation didn’t apply.

Now we've already discussed working on describing our Black characters better! I continually remind you all that you should be describing them as wonderfully made as you do your white characters. Keep in mind that we live in a world where from day one when we enter the world, Blackness and Black features are not seen as beautiful nor emphasized. Whiteness is the standard of beauty that we, for a long time and still, are expected to adhere to. If you'd like to do better by your characters, remember that you don't have to give them "white features" or use "white" as an adjective to do that!

Black Women as Women

“There was literally nothing, not a thing, that a white woman could ever have that was worth more than her sexual virtue, and this obligated mandatory chasteness and sexual vulnerability… If the most important thing a woman has is virtue, and only white women can have virtue, then by definition, only white women can be women.” Ruby Hamad, ‘Only White Women Can Be Damsels’, White Tears, Brown Scars

Often, Black women by definition are not included under the societal banner of “women”, from our features, to our personalities, to our 'role' in life. "True Womanhood" is denied us, cis and trans, because of our Blackness. The things that make women ‘women’, we are not included under, because systemically, the only ‘women’ that were meant to mean anything were white.

I bring up Megan Thee Stallion again. Meg is probably one of the most beautiful, feminine women I've ever seen in my life. Men still call her a man, due to her height, due to her confidence, and due to their insecurities. Same with Serena Williams; Serena is damn near built like a god in my eyes. She was told she was manly from the beginning of her career, no matter how beyond skilled she was in women's tennis. Even when she damn near died giving birth- the most basic of 'tasks' women are seen as having in this society, it didn't matter. Black women are 'less womanly', 'less valuable', 'less in need' of that protection and identity that society swears Women™ need (and not in the honest way that we do need protection).

Consider that you're making sure that your Black women have the options of range of gender expression and emotions (and if they aren't allowed to, is that on purpose). If you're only ever creating us and we're in service of some dainty white woman and never the other way around... consider how that may reflect what you think our role is in your story, and in your mind.

Adultification

“Awkward moment when Rue is some black girl and not the innocent blond girl you imagine.” twitter: sw4q

It has been shown that Black girls the same age as their white girl counterparts are deemed older and less in need of protection, and supposed to 'be more mature'. Imagine that. Deemed inherently less innocent, due to your skin color. Having to parent our siblings, get jobs to contribute, do all the cleaning, and more. Yet, when we act with the maturity that we've been forced to grow into, we're "fast". A little 12-year-old girl, now to society, the Jezebel. All because she wanted to try pink lip gloss or wear a skirt; things that little tween girls might try to understand the big world around them and push boundaries. Now she's a woman, now she can never be a victim. Now she can be beat on and hurt and it's her fault.

I explain this for two reasons: One, for you to think about how your write your Black girls, and Two, for you to hold more grace for Black girls- real and fake. Do you hold her to a higher standard than your white characters of similar age? Does she inherently seem less innocent to you for reasons outside the plot? Is she as human to you as your other characters? Is she allowed to be a child? To act like one? To make mistakes? Are you as empathetic or understanding about that childishness as you are towards nonblack characters? Do you make these decisions on purpose?

It's not like Black girls can never be YA protags or anything- ofc we can. But keep in mind that she's not somehow automatically "stronger" by proxy of her Blackness, that she'd "be tougher". She's a kid. Let her be one.

Conclusion

There’s a LOT you have to consider when writing Black girls and women. I’m not going to sit here and say it’s easy, because being Black, and being a Black woman, is not easy. If you’re stressed reading it, imagine being stressed living it lmao. It’s a constant chain of quick-time events every day of your life to prevent nonblack nuclear meltdown in response to your every single action. I’m not going to apologize for it, either.

That being said, I don’t expect you to understand everything, especially not all at once. I just want you all to keep these things in mind, to question yourself when you’re writing your character- are you treating her differently on purpose? Or are you treating her differently because of a bias you might not even notice you have? It might help to go back, to read how you treat all of your characters. Or, if you’ve never written before, to maybe outline the traits of your characters and figure out where things balance out. As always, all you can do is practice at it. Because it's the thought that counts, but the action that delivers.

Whew, I'm actually emotionally strained after this one. My chest is beating fast. Let me go get some groceries now.

[qqueenofhades]

Is it foolish of me to sympathize with how marginalized people on the far-left are incredibly frustrated that the Democratic establishment isn't as scared of/desperate to please them as the Republican establishment are toward the MAGA fringe? I guess from their perspective, voting feels like begging - most of the people who hear you won't even glance at you, let alone drop you a coin. But you still have to do it, or else you (or worse, your family) are *guaranteed* to starve.

Okay, a few thoughts here. Note: for you and the other people who have recently sent politics asks, I have been very deliberately NOT talking about it for the last few months. I had to break it yesterday because of the Orange Menace finally getting fucking convicted, but I do want to go back to not doing that (at least for the next few weeks/months/until whatever else stupid happens). So while I will answer this, I am generally not going to answer others and my apologies for that, but yeah. It's just so much and I have GOT to keep myself sane until November somehow. (Or God forbid, afterward, but you know.)

First off, most members of the American far left aren't actually marginalized people, or at least not marginalized enough that their personal well-being seems in any way likely to be affected by their loud and ceaseless campaign to tell other people not to vote. Actual marginalized people who have lived in America for any length of time are *well* aware of how the government and the state can be weaponized against them; witness how black community organizers will voice well-deserved criticisms of the Democratic establishment or other aspects of American party politics that are frustrating for everyone, but they will still always tell people to vote. Black people are also extremely aware that earning the right to vote was an incredibly long, difficult, and bloody battle that they were never given it for free, and the white power establishment fought them having it at every turn. They are thus far more aware than your average white online leftist that voting matters, because they had to work so hard to get it (and still to defend it as various red states launch openly racist assaults on voting rights, especially aimed at disenfranchising people of color). Witness how Bernie also got literally zero traction with African American voters, despite being the darling of the (white) online left.

Hispanic people are also (rightfully) frustrated at how both American parties can use Latino immigrants as a political football, but they're still backing Biden by 30-point margins. We hear a lot of chatter about Trump supposedly gaining ground with voters of color -- maybe he has, though I doubt it, but that's still incremental gains from the massive holes he was in before, and where he generally remains. Arab Americans are (rightfully) angry with Biden over Gaza, but even in the much-hyped Michigan primary, he got roughly the same amount of "uncommitted" voters as Obama did as an uncontested incumbent in 2012, and most of them have said they'll grit their teeth and vote for him in the general election anyway. Yes, a few of them have decided not to, but they are not the size of the Black and Latino populations in America insofar as electoral power, and many of them have grudgingly decided that as bad as Biden might be on this particular issue (though far less so than the social media groupthink would paint him) the alternative (i.e. Trump openly promising to deport everybody who's not white and crack down on pro-Palestinian protests and anything else) is much, much worse.

And yet, white leftists seem utterly incapable of making these same calculations. Frankly, I'm not sure they actually care about Gaza, let alone anything else they say, because if so, they wouldn't be slavering at the mouth to let Trump back in there to "teach a lesson" to Biden, Democrats, and everyone else who was not Smart And Clever Enough to sanctimoniously sit on their hands and let the fascists take over. I know this because they spent all their time lying about Biden and distorting his record and insisting people not vote even before October of last year, and then it only got ten thousand times worse. I'm not saying that all leftist or leftist-identified people are white, but they are disproportionately predominant in leftist spaces and in pushing the idea that there's "no difference" between the parties and somehow Trump and Biden are morally equivalent or will have the same amount of impact on what will happen after one of them is elected. That is, yes, because they are white and they have the privilege of assuming that a weaponized fascist government will not go after them for that reason (even though Trump and his surrogates are now claiming that "everyone" who opposes Trump has to be "dealt with.") As such, when you say that marginalized far-left people are frustrated with the Democrats, I'm... not entirely sure that's true. Marginalized people AND the far left are both frustrated with the Democrats, but one of those groups has generally still decided not to voluntarily disenfranchise themselves, and the other is pumping out Vladimir Putin-wet-dream anti-voting propaganda at every chance they get.

There is also the fact that America is not a left-wing country in any sense of the word, and that while it's easy for the MAGA Republicans to go ever further far-right and promise to be even more outrageously cruel and stupid and fascist than ever before, but that's not an actual policy or a plan. It is also a strategy of diminishing returns; witness the fact that for all the cruelty and stupidity Republicans have pumped into the public arena since 2016, they haven't actually been that good at winning elections, and most of their major successes have come from Trump winning in 2016 and thus being able to stack SCOTUS and the district and circuit courts with hand-picked right-wing nut jobs, who are functioning exactly as they were designed to do. (Which Hillary Clinton warned about, along with everyone else, and yet she was taken out by the exact same dirtbag leftist disinformation moral purity machine that is working overtime to handicap Biden for the exact same reasons.) Mainstream Democrats warned about this before the 2016 election and were scorned and laughed off. Indeed, the entire Online Left continues to resolutely deny that the extremist SCOTUS is responsible for anything (It's Biden's Fault) and thus are likewise identical to Trumpies. And since they also want Trump to get back in there and teach a lesson to the Democrats, they're just as anti-democratic, dangerous, stupid, and deliberately short-sighted as actual MAGATs, and can by no means be considered allies to the singular movement of keeping fascists out of power. That is our only present goal.

If Democrats bent over to everything the far left asks for (which is often a combination of tankie gobbledygook, various vague ideas about Communism utopia where capitalism magically vanishes with no consequences, half-baked revolution cosplays, and other stuff that is functionally equivalent to the wildest lunacies of MAGA) they would never win an election again, and that would be exactly what the fascists want. Witness how they struggled when they were branded "defunders of the police" and "socialists" and other effective responses to the mildest milquetoast efforts for reform or accountability. And the political climate right now is just far too dangerous to throw everything to the wind and prance out some pipe-dream perfect-utopia plan. I'm sure you've heard about Project 2025 and how the far-right Heritage Foundation is planning to systematically implement fascism at all levels of the country, the instant they have a compliant Republican president and congress. I would take all these people crying about Biden even a fraction more seriously if they weren't openly jonesing for something that is so unbelievably, incredibly worse.

For example: I currently have major beefs with literally the entire foreign policy of the Biden administration right now. I think they're being too hard on Ukraine (forbidding them to strike targets on Russian soil with American weapons, which would end the war faster) and, despite some promising signs and open displeasure, still far too easy on Israel. They looked foolish after insisting that Rafah was a red line and then essentially making up an excuse that what's going on now is not a "major operation." Secretary of State Blinken floating the idea of helping Congress censure or neuter the International Criminal Court arrest warrants issued for Netanyahu and co. was also one of the fucking stupidest things I've heard from a serious (i.e. non-Trumpist) American diplomat in a long time. So we respect the ICC when it issues warrants for tyrants we don't like (Putin), but when it issues one for tyrants we still do, apparently (Netanyahu), then bingo, it's back to the bad old habit of ignoring international law like we're special and it doesn't apply to us, and allows all the other bad actors around the world to do the same by pointing at America and correctly pointing out that we ignore it when it doesn't suit our purposes. I think this is wrong and I don't agree. So? What am I going to do?

Well, you see. I'm going to vote for Biden and I am going to give him money and I am going to remind everyone I know that they have no moral option but to do the same. I do this because I am aware that despite my disagreements, Biden is acting from a cautious anti-interventionist standpoint and does not want to throw American military might around recklessly or dangerously like good ol' George Dubya or Trump or even Obama and the drones. He is listening to sober mainstream advisors who have (however incorrect and useless) ideas about "avoiding escalation" and trying to bring conflict to a managed end. He is doing this with a realistic appraisal of the power of the office of American presidency and he's not going to capriciously end democracy and become a full-blown fascist dictator on day one, as Trump has openly and repeatedly promised to do. Yes, if there was a viable option apart from Biden, maybe I would think about voting for them, but there is not, and literally everyone who does not actively vote for him is helping Trump. I do not care about any other contrived and disingenuous online squealing. I know that Biden does not want the war in Gaza to go on for no reason and for maximum carnage; Netanyahu and Trump both do. That is just to name one thing.

So: yes. I absolutely understand being frustrated with the Democrats and wishing they would push harder and etc. But I am also aware that they can be pushed, that they are the only option right now, and the people who huff and puff and whine and groan about how it's such a moral imposition to vote for them are literally doing the fascists' work for them, and that is not acceptable. If they want a better system or a better world that isn't just useless internet fantasies about magical end-of-days Raptures fixing everything, also a la the crazy fundamentalists, they will have to get off their ass, do the work, and create that change. I will be happy to vote for that candidate when or if they arrive. In the meantime, I will continue to do my damndest to ensure that we even have a chance to get there. So yeah.

[germiyahu]

There's such an intricate interplay between antisemitism and islamophobia from the slacktivist left. For every reason they can think of to delegitimize the Jewish People's connection to Eretz Yisrael, it's propped up by some Noble Savage presumptions about Palestinians/Arabs/Muslims.

Since Jews in America are seen as a model minority, seen as having accessed whiteness and privilege, and "antisemitism" is at worst having to explain what Hanukah is to clueless Christians, the Left is confused as to exactly why Jews care about Jerusalem and the Land of Israel so much. Shouldn't they be above such petty and barbaric and outdated concerns such as a dusty old book from 2,000 years ago?

They should be more enlightened than that. They're all rich suburban secular Democrats. They're the leftist religion, according to bloggers on this very platform. There is no room for Judaism to be a religion, there's no acknowledgment of ancient customs, rituals, and the deep mysticism that's still alive and well in the Jewish community. There's no attempt to understand Jewish history and culture and why a group of people you think shares your vaguely atheistic vaguely liberal (and not in the Tankie sense) vaguely smug detached Western worldview... is more complex and unique than that.

Jews should be happy living in Diaspora because clearly the problem of antisemitism is fixed now, and never really was a problem in America. There must be something sinister behind a desire to reestablish a country by and for Jews. There must be something colonial, oppressive, European and White about it. Because why else would they do it? They have it good here. And no we won't acknowledge where Israelis primarily descend from because that requires us to do research and have a shred of nuance and integrity when it comes to Jews. No thanks!

A lot of the modern left is nonconsensually dragging Jews kicking and screaming from their own unique demographic toward the banal Norm. To themselves. But not totally. See they think they relate to Jews and vice versa, but not enough that when they think Jews should "know better," or haven't "learned their lesson," from the Holocaust, it engenders a deep seeded disgust and mistrust and rage that's not felt for actually privileged mainstream dominant society.

Conversely, the slacktivist Left sees Arabs as savages. Silly desert people who eat sand and worship a big black cube and cover every inch of their bodies for some reason. How quaint! When the Palestinian/Arab/Muslim cause explains that Jerusalem is important to them, the White Western Leftist nods sagely and says "Your culture is so valid queen," because they don't care. They just accept that Muslim society would be willing to fight over an ancient city proscribed as holy in dusty old tomes. Because that fits the narrative already surrounding Muslims.

They're seen as backwards, but the Left, reacting to their conservative parents and the Bush era, see "Muslims are backwards," and says not "No actually they're modern groups of people with practical geopolitical goals," but instead "Yeah and that makes them better than us!" Especially with this new crop of baby Leftists who think Islamo-Fascist "Feudalism" or whatever the best term would be, is aspirational or at least harmless... because it's not capitalism :)

So Muslims are infantilized and condescended to because the Western Leftist is still just as racist as their parents, but they feel guilty about their parents without considering their contribution to White Supremacy and the Post Bush surveillance state. And all the while Jews are reprimanded and held to an impossible standard because the Western Leftist, again, rejects their conservative parents' philosemitism, and decides that Jews Must be Punished when they step off the pedestal that Suffering the Shoah placed them on.

Jews should be above nationalism, Jews should know that demurely suffering pogroms and ethnic cleansing and genocide and general inequity and humiliation will earn them their divine reward in the end. Muslims should not be above nationalism, because they're not capable of being above it, and can't we throw them a bone, after all Obama was the worst president in history because of the Drone War and let's not mention George W Bush at all :0

Hot take, but I believe this is an essential underpinning of where the average disaffected White millennial/zoomer Leftist's head is at with regard to Israel and Palestine. They won't acknowledge it of course, but I can generally see through things like this.

[silverity]

i'm gonna make my painful contribution to The Discourse and say i do not see the harm in women reclaiming female centric spirituality.

i am not a religious person nor do i want to become one but spirituality is also about culture, community and celebration. i would much rather women celebrate nature, the female form, and "divine femininity" than patriarchal phallocentric religions. that "divine femininity" is used pejoratively has always tickled me considering we live in a world hooked on divine masculinity. the old matricentric religions are really the only form of female culture devoid of male-centric worship we can grasp at, since men have dominated our belief systems for thousands of years. and women learning about the old religions is the best way to unravel the myth of the male creator, and realise it is really women who are the closest thing to a "god" on Earth.

there's also an element here, which i think is deeply capitalist, patriarchal, and a little racist, of people considering the connection to & celebration of nature as somehow primitive. i think that the lifestyles most of us live now, with none of us knowing anything about the land around us is actually very infantile and regressive for humanity as a whole. the ways of life we consider "primitive" (primitive communism, matrilineal societies) are really what we need to find ways to return to post-capitalism. they were in tune to nature, sustainable, and much more communal & equal. how can nature be primitive or ascientific when science *is* in nature, and the practices of these old societies were early scientific discoveries & practices. as a Black person, my community is often trying to reclaim our lost practices. it makes sense to me that women would try to do so too.

[circuitcircus]

in defense of kabumisu……..

addressing things I see people say about why kabru being shipped w mithrun is ‘bad’ or why their canon relationship ‘doesn’t mean anything’ while also clearing up misconceptions of the characters some fans have

listen it keeps popping up and I just gotta do this or my brain will melt (if you don’t see it around then god I wish that were me) there’s an age gap!- erm there’s also an age gap in farcille (ily), the most popular ship in the series...also chilchuck looks like a kid but a lot of fans recognize him as a dilf because of his relative age, so there should be no age gap discourse among adult characters because it feels so conditional tbh

kabru taking care of mithrun is racist!- marcille likes to take care of others as well. is that sexist, or just an aspect of her character?

kabru isn’t treated like a servant, waiting on mithrun hand and foot…I mean he gives mithrun a foot massage but no one told him to do all that lmfao

he's also not the only one to care for mithrun. pattadol is shown to worry for him and milsril was the one to start taking care mithrun in the first place after he…...y’know. speaking of which-

they probably met when kabru was a kid!- neither of them showed signs of recognizing each other the entire time mithrun was introduced nor when they were together. and im pretty sure KABRU of all people would show some kind of recognition if they'd met before. it's kabru!!! the people person!!! mr. "i-noted-down-50+-characters-in-this-dude's-backstory-for-fun-and-actually-enjoy-social-gatherings"

you would think some kind of memory would come back to him especially after hearing mithrun’s backstory if milsril had even told kabru about him as a kid. but nope. it’s just fan speculation unless there's a side comic suggesting otherwise that i haven't seen

mithrun doesn't care about kabru, his shapeshift double looked like shit!- it's obviously because of mithrun's (then) lack of desires that it looked like that, but they really grow on each other

i think it's safe to assume it'd look more like kabru after they spent so much time together (also laios can barely even remember kabru's name..also saw his face multiple times and didn’t recognize him when they talked for the first time)

mithrun is racist!- he’s actually the least likely character to be racist since he lost his desires and that includes a desire for superiority over others. he even calls his past self out on that part of himself. the other elves in that side comic were being just as racist to shorter lived races but just didn’t use ‘outdated slurs’

(unfortunately literally every main character in dunmeshi is at least a lil prejudiced, but I believe it’s worldbuilding and a sign of the times rather than a reason ryoko kui is giving to hate each character)

taking care of others is a pain in the ass!- saying this as a reason kabru and mithrun shouldn't be together is basically saying disabled people shouldn't be allowed to have romantic relationships because they're a "burden"...if someone is actually willing to put in the work, then let them be.

that's not even all of their relationship, mithrun is the fighter of their duo and kabru would've been killed by the shapeshifter or something if he'd fallen down the hole on his own since he sucks at fighting monsters. mithrun helps collect ingredients for cooking every time, too (barometz fruits and griffin egg). he pulls his weight and then some!! i feel like people forget that part of mithrun a lot somehow.

+senshi literally cooks for everyone all time. it's kind of an important aspect of the narrative.

+also, while it is a popular fan thing I see around that kabru handfeeds mithrun, he literally never does lol this is mithrun using his own hands to eat:

also here we have him washing his own body

just saying because people like to treat mithrun like a baby even though the narrative respects him as a capable adult who also has special needs because of an accident. he’s captain for a reason

kabru hates taking care of mithrun!- not exactly, he was initially surprised and put off but got used to it quickly. i’m sure he’s grateful for all the times mithrun saved him from a monster and teleported them out of danger as well

he even starts doing “unnecessary” things for mithrun’s comfort and safety like when mithrun pushes himself too hard fighting, even after his mission to take care of him was complete when the canaries came back

here is even kabru resting while mithrun keeps watch (mithrun let him sleep for 5 hours before waking him up from the nightmare earlier, too):

there's nothing more to their relationship!- they actually have had a very tight and consistent dynamic since they met and they incite the most change within each other by the end. kabru is the one who inspires mithrun to create new desires so he doesn't waste away, and mithrun is the first person we see kabru being genuine with and it leads him to be more honest with others by the end instead of tiptoeing around everyone all the time (that mask was also the reason some ppl initially disliked kabru…)

kabru’s relationship with mithrun is honestly so important for his character and vice versa, but it’s often disregarded because of one over exaggerated aspect of it (an aspect that isn’t even the first way they interact with each other) or because people want to just straight up ignore it for some reason 🥲🥲

kui dedicates many panels to them that don't particularly serve the narrative as a whole in order to demonstrate this and i think that's pretty significant

you're taking this too seriously!- as if i'm the first person in the world to be crazy about a ship or the characters 😭 i love analyzing text and it's upsetting to see them mischaracterized when kui lays out the characters so clearly and deliberately

also they end up touching each other like all the time and have the kind of canon validation most ppl can only dream of lol i feel so insane look at this:

and this is just when they're first getting to know each other cuz there's a fuckload more

kinda hard to explain how i don't actually need them to get married or whatever but i'd die on this hill for them and i enjoy their dynamic immensely

haha you thought you were reading ship discourse but it was actually a character analysis 🤪🤪🤪

also don’t somehow take this to mean I think anyone has to ship them, I just need everyone to understand these accusations kind of don’t make sense especially when they can also apply to other pairs or characters

bonus kabru just looking at mithrun:

[tododeku-or-bust]

Wait, is racism really a big problem in fandom spaces? /genq

Maybe I’ve been living under a rock or I’m not in spaces that are racist. But I genuinely had no clue that was such a big issue

(Major note: I am white)

I- You didn't have to tell me lmao. I'm genuinely stunned right now 😅 like I don't.... Yes!! Racism is an incredibly pervasive problem in fandom and media related spaces, and- and I'm not saying this to hurt your feelings, but I am being honest and teaching you the truth- the fact that you are just now realizing that is a major part of the problem.

I wrote an addition to my original post here getting into some of the details as to WHY fandom racism, particularly against Black fans, is a real thing. You can Google and YouTube the topic, and there are Black bloggers that discuss them in detail- I'm going to tag some people who could drop specific names.

You are absolutely in spaces that are racist. So toss that out of your mind. There's not a singular fandom, nor space on earth, that antiblack racism cannot reach. Perhaps your peers aren't discussing it out loud, perhaps y'all aren't recognizing that the behavior occurring within your environment is racist, but it is very much there. And an unawareness of it means that it's probably a lot more of it going unacknowledged than you think.

One good way to solve this problem is to follow Black bloggers in your fandoms (and in general), and other bloggers of colors, and pay attention to the things we discuss. Because for those of us that are still kicking, we do discuss these things! You're going to have to put yourself out there and be willing to get uncomfortable in order to learn how to recognize racism around you, as well as within you, so that you can unlearn those harmful behaviors and do better.

Otherwise... Now that I've told you this, you would be choosing willful ignorance. And that's the OTHER major problem with racism in fandom/in general- those who are told their actions or words are racist, and who choose to double down on that racism instead.

[read-marx-and-lenin]

Can you explain why 1984 is fundamentally reactionary? I remember seeing a journalistic article talking about the same thing but sadly it was paywalled

The whole premise of the book is "if we let the government do too much stuff, eventually the government will get so big it will do Everything and nobody will be able to stop it, it will grow so big it will be a self-perpetuating tyranny."

It's your typical liberal cautionary tale against "authoritarianism", conflating fascism and communism while understanding neither. Orwell had never been to the Soviet Union, and instead drew heavily from his own experience working for the British Ministry of Information. Later in his life, he would even compile a list of suspected Communists to hand over to British intelligence agents, some on the list included solely because they were gay or Jewish.

Animal Farm is another example of his reactionary sentiment, in which the peasants and workers of the Soviet Union are depicted as gullible and weak-minded animals jerked around at every turn by the pigs, a stand-in for Marxists in general and Bolsheviks specifically. Incidentally, Orwell during his time at the Ministry of Information had become acquainted with one Gertrude Elias, who shared with him her own idea for a cartoon film depicting the Nazis as tyrannical pigs ruling over the other animals in a farm. Orwell had told her the idea wasn't any good, before going on to write Animal Farm, replacing the fascists in the story with communists.

Here's a good read about Animal Farm by the way, which I feel shows very clearly the kind of reactionary Orwell was:

Compare Orwell's depiction of the mindless masses in Animal Farm to the "proles" in 1984. 1984 hardly mentions them except to say that they all live in squalor and have no agency worth considering, which allows them to live free of surveillance and control, since the State doesn't see any purpose in expending the resources to surveil them. They're all dumb, mindless addicts and gamblers whose only purpose is to provide menial labor. Meanwhile, the protagonist of the book, who is cunning and able to question the whole situation, is a middle-class white collar propagandist, just like Orwell was during his time at the Ministry of Information. Orwell clearly viewed himself as superior to the mindless masses, and he was a racist to boot, just look at what he wrote about the Burmese or the Irish. The Russian masses as depicted in Animal Farm needed little more than to be ordered around and they were willing to follow whoever was giving the orders. The English masses as depicted in 1984 needed a bureaucratic mountain of sophisticated social engineering dedicated entirely to manipulating every last minutia of information in society in order to be subject to the same level of control.

[writingwithcolor]

Thanksgiving/Day of Mourning

Last year, I made a very quick, basic post about thanksgiving: Indigenous Day of Mourning aka Thanksgiving. if you want the sources for what I’m about to say, check there.

This post will be about why you cannot just go “fuck the pilgrims, we deserve a harvest festival no matter the origin” or anything else that tries to sanitize the holiday.

You Are Still On Stolen Land

As a result, you are still actively profiting off the genocide the pilgrims committed.

I don’t care how educated about racial issues you profess you are. I don’t care how you behave the other 364 days of the year. If you try to distance yourself from the origins of Thanksgiving simply because it makes you uncomfortable to see the blood under the tablecloth, you’re not practised in sitting with actually being anti-racist. You know what to say, but you don’t practice what you preach.

You Are Eating Our Food

Pumpkins/squash, beans, turkey, cranberries, potatoes, corn, sweet potatoes, pecans, maple syrup?

Those are all Native American foods that we taught you how to grow and harvest.

You wouldn’t have any of your traditional Thanksgiving foods without us. The ideal meal of Thanksgiving is ripped right from Indigenous practices and cannot be separated from it.

The fact that these foods have been taken out of Indigenous hands and appropriated by colonizers as the bounties they somehow deserve for landing here is a tragedy, and people need to remember where their food comes from and who had been growing it for thousands of years.

You Had So Much Because Of Massacre

Thanksgiving became an annual tradition after 700 Pequot men, women, children, and elders were killed, freeing up acres of land that colonizers promptly took over. The sheer amount of extra acreage that colonizers had because of their genocide contributed to the excess of food experienced during Thanksgiving. That land had been structured to support more people originally.

Colonizers had never, ever, deserved that much food. They were taking more than they needed, not leaving much behind for the animals that depended on a balance to be held with humans. They took far more than was needed, throwing the balance off in nature.

Maybe I’m reaching. But I think that if you suddenly had 700 less people in the area, after all of the growing and planting for the total population had been done, you’d have excess food? Or even before the growing, you’d have land set up to support 700, that I’d assume you’d still use, when you were a much smaller population?

Sit With Your Own Grief

If this makes you feel bad and that you shouldn’t celebrate Thanksgiving? Sit with that.

I’m not telling you that you have to give up Thanksgiving traditions. I’m telling you that you cannot divorce them from Indigenous people.

You are giving thanks for our massacre. You are giving thanks for stealing so much from us that you had this excess.

Yes, you can need a break; yes, you can need time with family and friends. None of this is inherently bad.

It’s not even bad to eat local food from Turtle Island! Part of having a sustainable diet is eating locally, in time with the seasons.

But remember, it is Indigenous people who first gave this to you—and then you stole far more than you ever needed from us, killing us to get what you felt you deserved.

Do not divorce Thanksgiving from Indigenous people for your own comfort.

We are still here. We must live with the aftermath of colonizers stealing from us every single day.

If you feel this way hearing about our history, imagine what we feel like living it.

Donate to a local org/Indigenous person this Thanksgiving

I (again) don’t have the spoons to compile a list of vetted charities, but look for local tribe language revival programs, COVID relief funds, and activism around the Indian Child Welfare Act currently in front of the Supreme Court.

Pay reparations for what you have taken, and remember. It is also Indigenous Day of Mourning.

Indigenous people, drop your links below.

~Lesya

[lurkiestvoid]

You're being targeted by disinformation networks that are vastly more effective than you realize. And they're making you more hateful and depressed.

(This essay was originally by u/walkandtalkk and posted to r/GenZ on Reddit two months ago, and I've crossposted here on Tumblr for convenience because it's relevant and well-written.)

TL;DR: You know that Russia and other governments try to manipulate people online. But you almost certainly don't how just how effectively orchestrated influence networks are using social media platforms to make you -- individually-- angry, depressed, and hateful toward each other. Those networks' goal is simple: to cause Americans and other Westerners -- especially young ones -- to give up on social cohesion and to give up on learning the truth, so that Western countries lack the will to stand up to authoritarians and extremists.

And you probably don't realize how well it's working on you.

This is a long post, but I wrote it because this problem is real, and it's much scarier than you think.

How Russian networks fuel racial and gender wars to make Americans fight one another

In September 2018, a video went viral after being posted by In the Now, a social media news channel. It featured a feminist activist pouring bleach on a male subway passenger for manspreading. It got instant attention, with millions of views and wide social media outrage. Reddit users wrote that it had turned them against feminism.

There was one problem: The video was staged. And In the Now, which publicized it, is a subsidiary of RT, formerly Russia Today, the Kremlin TV channel aimed at foreign, English-speaking audiences.

As an MIT study found in 2019, Russia's online influence networks reached 140 million Americans every month -- the majority of U.S. social media users.

Russia began using troll farms a decade ago to incite gender and racial divisions in the United States

In 2013, Yevgeny Prigozhin, a confidante of Vladimir Putin, founded the Internet Research Agency (the IRA) in St. Petersburg. It was the Russian government's first coordinated facility to disrupt U.S. society and politics through social media.

Here's what Prigozhin had to say about the IRA's efforts to disrupt the 2022 election:

"Gentlemen, we interfered, we interfere and we will interfere. Carefully, precisely, surgically and in our own way, as we know how. During our pinpoint operations, we will remove both kidneys and the liver at once."

In 2014, the IRA and other Russian networks began establishing fake U.S. activist groups on social media. By 2015, hundreds of English-speaking young Russians worked at the IRA. Their assignment was to use those false social-media accounts, especially on Facebook and Twitter -- but also on Reddit, Tumblr, 9gag, and other platforms -- to aggressively spread conspiracy theories and mocking, ad hominem arguments that incite American users.

In 2017, U.S. intelligence found that Blacktivist, a Facebook and Twitter group with more followers than the official Black Lives Matter movement, was operated by Russia. Blacktivist regularly attacked America as racist and urged black users to rejected major candidates. On November 2, 2016, just before the 2016 election, Blacktivist's Twitter urged Black Americans: "Choose peace and vote for Jill Stein. Trust me, it's not a wasted vote."

Russia plays both sides -- on gender, race, and religion

The brilliance of the Russian influence campaign is that it convinces Americans to attack each other, worsening both misandry and misogyny, mutual racial hatred, and extreme antisemitism and Islamophobia. In short, it's not just an effort to boost the right wing; it's an effort to radicalize everybody.

Russia uses its trolling networks to aggressively attack men. According to MIT, in 2019, the most popular Black-oriented Facebook page was the charmingly named "My Baby Daddy Aint Shit." It regularly posts memes attacking Black men and government welfare workers. It serves two purposes: Make poor black women hate men, and goad black men into flame wars.

MIT found that My Baby Daddy is run by a large troll network in Eastern Europe likely financed by Russia.

But Russian influence networks are also also aggressively misogynistic and aggressively anti-LGBT.

On January 23, 2017, just after the first Women's March, the New York Times found that the Internet Research Agency began a coordinated attack on the movement. Per the Times:

More than 4,000 miles away, organizations linked to the Russian government had assigned teams to the Women’s March. At desks in bland offices in St. Petersburg, using models derived from advertising and public relations, copywriters were testing out social media messages critical of the Women’s March movement, adopting the personas of fictional Americans.

They posted as Black women critical of white feminism, conservative women who felt excluded, and men who mocked participants as hairy-legged whiners.

But the Russian PR teams realized that one attack worked better than the rest: They accused its co-founder, Arab American Linda Sarsour, of being an antisemite. Over the next 18 months, at least 152 Russian accounts regularly attacked Sarsour. That may not seem like many accounts, but it worked: They drove the Women's March movement into disarray and eventually crippled the organization.

Russia doesn't need a million accounts, or even that many likes or upvotes. It just needs to get enough attention that actual Western users begin amplifying its content.

A former federal prosecutor who investigated the Russian disinformation effort summarized it like this:

It wasn’t exclusively about Trump and Clinton anymore. It was deeper and more sinister and more diffuse in its focus on exploiting divisions within society on any number of different levels.

As the New York Times reported in 2022,

There was a routine: Arriving for a shift, [Russian disinformation] workers would scan news outlets on the ideological fringes, far left and far right, mining for extreme content that they could publish and amplify on the platforms, feeding extreme views into mainstream conversations.

China is joining in with AI

[A couple months ago], the New York Times reported on a new disinformation campaign. "Spamouflage" is an effort by China to divide Americans by combining AI with real images of the United States to exacerbate political and social tensions in the U.S. The goal appears to be to cause Americans to lose hope, by promoting exaggerated stories with fabricated photos about homeless violence and the risk of civil war.

As Ladislav Bittman, a former Czechoslovakian secret police operative, explained about Soviet disinformation, the strategy is not to invent something totally fake. Rather, it is to act like an evil doctor who expertly diagnoses the patient’s vulnerabilities and exploits them, “prolongs his illness and speeds him to an early grave instead of curing him.”

The influence networks are vastly more effective than platforms admit

Russia now runs its most sophisticated online influence efforts through a network called Fabrika. Fabrika's operators have bragged that social media platforms catch only 1% of their fake accounts across YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, and Telegram, and other platforms.

But how effective are these efforts? By 2020, Facebook's most popular pages for Christian and Black American content were run by Eastern European troll farms tied to the Kremlin. And Russia doesn't just target angry Boomers on Facebook. Russian trolls are enormously active on Twitter. And, even, on Reddit.

It's not just false facts

The term "disinformation" undersells the problem. Because much of Russia's social media activity is not trying to spread fake news. Instead, the goal is to divide and conquer by making Western audiences depressed and extreme.

Sometimes, through brigading and trolling. Other times, by posting hyper-negative or extremist posts or opinions about the U.S. the West over and over, until readers assume that's how most people feel. And sometimes, by using trolls to disrupt threads that advance Western unity.

As the RAND think tank explained, the Russian strategy is volume and repetition, from numerous accounts, to overwhelm real social media users and create the appearance that everyone disagrees with, or even hates, them. And it's not just low-quality bots. Per RAND,

Russian propaganda is produced in incredibly large volumes and is broadcast or otherwise distributed via a large number of channels. ... According to a former paid Russian Internet troll, the trolls are on duty 24 hours a day, in 12-hour shifts, and each has a daily quota of 135 posted comments of at least 200 characters.

What this means for you

You are being targeted by a sophisticated PR campaign meant to make you more resentful, bitter, and depressed. It's not just disinformation; it's also real-life human writers and advanced bot networks working hard to shift the conversation to the most negative and divisive topics and opinions.

It's why some topics seem to go from non-issues to constant controversy and discussion, with no clear reason, across social media platforms. And a lot of those trolls are actual, "professional" writers whose job is to sound real.

So what can you do? To quote WarGames: The only winning move is not to play. The reality is that you cannot distinguish disinformation accounts from real social media users. Unless you know whom you're talking to, there is a genuine chance that the post, tweet, or comment you are reading is an attempt to manipulate you -- politically or emotionally.

Here are some thoughts:

Don't accept facts from social media accounts you don't know. Russian, Chinese, and other manipulation efforts are not uniform. Some will make deranged claims, but others will tell half-truths. Or they'll spin facts about a complicated subject, be it the war in Ukraine or loneliness in young men, to give you a warped view of reality and spread division in the West.

Resist groupthink. A key element of manipulate networks is volume. People are naturally inclined to believe statements that have broad support. When a post gets 5,000 upvotes, it's easy to think the crowd is right. But "the crowd" could be fake accounts, and even if they're not, the brilliance of government manipulation campaigns is that they say things people are already predisposed to think. They'll tell conservative audiences something misleading about a Democrat, or make up a lie about Republicans that catches fire on a liberal server or subreddit.

Don't let social media warp your view of society. This is harder than it seems, but you need to accept that the facts -- and the opinions -- you see across social media are not reliable. If you want the news, do what everyone online says not to: look at serious, mainstream media. It is not always right. Sometimes, it screws up. But social media narratives are heavily manipulated by networks whose job is to ensure you are deceived, angry, and divided.

Edited for typos and clarity. (Tumblr-edited for formatting and to note a sourced article is now older than mentioned in the original post. -LV)

P.S. Apparently, this post was removed several hours ago due to a flood of reports. Thank you to the r/GenZ moderators for re-approving it.

Second edit:

This post is not meant to suggest that r/GenZ is uniquely or especially vulnerable, or to suggest that a lot of challenges people discuss here are not real. It's entirely the opposite: Growing loneliness, political polarization, and increasing social division along gender lines is real. The problem is that disinformation and influence networks expertly, and effectively, hijack those conversations and use those real, serious issues to poison the conversation. This post is not about left or right: Everyone is targeted.

(Further Tumblr notes: since this was posted, there have been several more articles detailing recent discoveries of active disinformation/influence and hacking campaigns by Russia and their allies against several countries and their respective elections, and barely touches on the numerous Tumblr blogs discovered to be troll farms/bad faith actors from pre-2016 through today. This is an ongoing and very real problem, and it's nowhere near over.

A quote from NPR article linked above from 2018 that you might find familiar today: "[A] particular hype and hatred for Trump is misleading the people and forcing Blacks to vote Killary. We cannot resort to the lesser of two devils. Then we'd surely be better off without voting AT ALL," a post from the account said.")

[ftmtftm]

I've been scrolling through your blog, and I saw your post about discussing the racialized nature of gender. As someone who has several transmasc POC friends, and someone who's a nonbinary POC themself, I wanted to give my 2 cents.

It's important to understand that "woman" in the "man vs woman" gender binary is a colonialist, white supremacist construct, especially in Western countries where you are the numerical minority. My trans friends aren't on T, they haven't gotten top surgery, we are all quite young. But they all have numerous stories about being addressed as "sir" which brings them euphoria but as one person said, while we were making fun of the amount of white people in our club, "Due to my race and skin color, I get masculinized."

And again I'd like to emphasize, that since we're young, none of us really have medically transitioned due to financial and familial barriers. Their hair is long, our binders we definitely have notable chests, and even if they dress masculine, it's notable that no one in our communities would ever gender us properly. It's often white people calling them "sir." Again, I think this reflects how gender performances in mainstream queer communities are deeply White. Like, trans boys talk about having haircuts, but only one of my friends has that wavier, more manageable hair that will help them pass. When you've got curly/kinky hair, the standards are different. For a white person, what's the difference between a "girl" Afro and a boy "Afro"? White cis people have a harder time identifying us, and literally talk to any black girl, and they'll tell you about being mocked, dehumanized, and called "manly".

I don't have much else to say. These are just my personal experiences. But if you want to be an ally to POC in the queer community, this is why it's so fucking important to bring in colonialism/imperialism/white supremacy into discussions of queer liberation. My biggest gripe with ignorant white queers is when they ignore their white privilege, and act like "cishets" (AKA the patriarchal system regulating sexuality and gender) is the only enemy. Because cishet POC deal with plenty of shit with being infantilized, masculinized, feminized, seen as brutish & dangerous, the list goes on. Doberbutts had a post saying, "Believe me, your family's going to care more about me being black than my queerness." towards his white partners. Acknowledging and creating a framework that centers these intersections of queerness and race into your beliefs is true allyship. This is why if you're not anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, ACAB...I do not think you care for queer liberation. None of us are free until all of us are free.

Please don't view this post as an attack. But this is my perspective, and I thought you'd be receptive to me sharing my lived experiences.

Oh I absolutely don't view this ask as an attack, and I really appreciate you bringing these things up because you're right! Like, just very plainly: You are right and your and your friends lived experiences are extremely important to the conversation on the racialized aspects of gender.

It gets me thinking about where Misogynoir and the social White Fear of Black manhood intersect for Black trans men in particular. Because Black women and Women of Color in general are masculinized by White gender standards and the ways in which Black trans masculine people are gendered in alignment with their identity is absolutely not always done with gender affirming intent. In fact, it's often actually done with racist intent or is fueled by racist bias when it's coming from White people or even from non-Black POC.

That's kind of restating things you've said but differently, it's just such a topic worth highlighting explicitly since it's extremely relevant to the conversation that's been happening about Male Privilege here the last few days.

I do think I know exactly what @doberbutts post you're talking about and yeah. It's just truth. It's something Black queer people have been talking about for ages in both theory and in pop culture (my mind immediately goes to Kevin Abstract and "American Boyfriend") where Black queer/trans identity is both materially different from (neutral) and is treated differently from (negative) White queer/trans identity in multitudes of ways and those differences are worth sharing and exploring and talking about.

Genuinely, thank you for sharing! I try really hard not to lead these kinds of conversations outside of explicitly referencing back to non-White theorists because I don't particularly feel like it's my place to do so, but I will always provide a platform for them because they're extremely important conversations to be had.

[eastgaysian]

okay here's one post i have to make. Finally racism confirmed real in succession. other people have talked about this before but it is a huge blind spot of the show not to acknowledge the intersection between racism and capitalism, and the excuse that the characters are the 1% and the 1% are vastly white is pretty weak. the fact that the show sidelines its existing characters of color while every now and then broadly gesturing towards race makes this worse, especially as the show more directly focuses on fascism and just Doesn't bring race into it. like i don't even think race is totally absent as a concern of the writers but it's clearly not a priority. i think a lot about how mo's widow is a filipino woman

anyway. ken and rava's conversation in this sense doesn't really qualify as, like, revolutionary in terms of succession's commentary on race esp since it's a discussion between two white parents about their brown daughter without her present. the point of interest to me really is that kendall completely fails to recognize racism as a systemic issue, much less that he works for and is trying to sustain a company that actively works to perpetuate that hegemony. his questions are why was sophie on the street? why wasn't rava there? in the same episode where he calls matsson homophobic for saying the numbers are gay. socially aware king

it's not particularly revelatory to say that a rich white man doesn't grasp the concept of systemic racism LOL but i do think it's more than that for kendall, and i also think this trait is something his siblings don't share. it's like how he doesn't realize he's in a position of power over anna and she was pressured into attending the recny with him, and his adoption of a faux-feminist stance in s3 while continuing to treat women like shit. kendall's whole concept of Everything, including systemic social issues, goes back to logan. there's no system outside of dad. the doj doesn't find the cruises evidence compelling? that's because they're scared of logan. logan's the source of the evil in the world, therefore opposing him is inherently progressive, leaving kendall with even less of a coherent moral framework after his death. and he's completely unable to process the idea that he could be participating in and benefiting from the greater racist or sexist system, because that's fundamentally incompatible with his logan-based idea of his own identity.

i don't think roman or shiv or even connor share this particular nearsightedness. roman 'we do hate speech and roller coasters' roy knows what's going on but he doesn't really care and he doesn't believe it can be changed (or, maybe more accurately, that there's any point in trying). he doesn't buy into fascism on the ideological level, exactly, but the spectacle appeals to him and he does believe it's profitable to align with it, so he's perfectly happy to do so. i think he's the most similar to logan in this regard. and shiv and connor have actual political ideologies, even if they're far from being meaningfully opposed to fascism, which requires a base awareness of the fact that We Live In A Society and That Society Has Systems In It. for kendall it really boils down to logan and logan alone