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Likely distractions from pain and emotional drain and energy issues ( I ordered out, did not decide to starve until I could cook tomorrow and feel better now.)
Like I mentioned before, I like small spaces and read Tiny House, Small House blogs. But I've found myself thinking two things a lot in the past few days as I was getting re-caught up in that section of the blogsphere. None of these houses are designed with disabilities in mind. Apparently if you are disabled it is just too bad for you that so many house plans & designs involve loft bedrooms, no wheel chair or even cane manueverability and the thing that bugged me the most - absolutely no disabled access into the damn house in the first place.
All this thought on maximizing space and dual purpose this and how a person lives that, and green living and energy conservation, and tens upon tens of STAIRS.
The second thing I noticed is how very few people of colour I see involved in the small house movement who aren't 'Those poor people in Brownilla Country Where It's Hot'. White people; get back to basics, pare down, have a small house movement and live less cluttered and ostentatious lives. Non white people are just poor, the dear things.
The thought's been floating around and around in my head that you have to be 'white' and 'privileged' and 'well off' to live a simple life that's called a simple life and not the result of lack of effort & ambition. And when someone on a blog challenged the cost of workshops to learn how to build these tiny houses, they got dogpiled on and told that such and such deserves to be able to make enough to mind his family, and it's a service not something free and there's nothing wrong with making money.
Just like I have no doubt they'd stutter and stammer and stare if someone pointed out all the houses being oohed and awwhed over are impractical for those with disabilities
I also discovered this week that the American West had a culture, a sheep rancher culture, that created caravans that were structurally a lot like Rom Caravans of the early 19th century. And considering that the caravans had a European start, it does make sense that the style would go along with European immigrants attempting to 'settle' the West. (One of these days I need to write out my thoughts on confusion on how a land can be settled that already has people on it. Since I was small I've been confused about the Louisiana and Alaskan purchases because how can you sell something you don't own?)
But back to the 'Small House Movement' - where 'Gypsy Caravans' are showed off, with plans and designs, as possible 'Studios' and 'Meditation Rooms' (Isn't that a clash of appropriations) and 'Play Houses'. They're carved and brightly painted and beautiful and stolen.
What's yours is mine and what's mine is mine. The melting pot. Everything must go in to be shared with everyone. Except the things we the powerful keep for ourselves as precious to us.
American the pickpocket, the hug and handshake to welcome you to the fold, that robs you shamelessly at the same time. And isn't it quaint you thought your belongings were only for you and not meant to be picked over like wares at a fleamarket with certain less 'shiny' things insultingly marked down.
They're not fully formed yet, my thoughts on the specific rejections and the specific acceptance that is co-option and dilution and secularism. But I'm beginning to understand some of my exhaustion.
There's only so much 'don't think about it' a person can do, right?
And there's only so much one can take, to see the death of a pregnant mouse get more sympathy than the tasering of a pregnant brown woman.
Hmmm. I think I need richer and more filling than what I currently have, to feed my soul. Actually I think I'm tired of picking glass out of my mental vittles.
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Ovlulation pain. Tailbone pain. Joint pain (due to overhanging storm) and a swollen breastbone. And I begin to sincerely wish there were other ways I had to back up my computer (but I don't plan to spend a lot of money on an external drive only to have the monitor say 'I am the weakest link - goodbye').
At least I deleted the dvd/cd burn+copy program that came with the computer. I don't know why I kept thinking it was easy for me to use. It wasn't. And then after thinking I'd messed up 3 different discs. I got a new program (yay freeware) and used the last disc, which got burned beautifully and now I have Season 1 and Season 2 of The Weekenders. (I need to be in better spirits to monitor to dwnld and burn S3 and S4 - especially since each 10 minute episode is halved for some reason).
But ow. Very grumpy. And even though there's roast in the fridge I just want to order something for the comfort of the food coming from somewhere else. But I don't even know what I'd order. I'm not craving any flavours at all. So I won't. I'm just - ow. A lot of ow. I loathe pain. And even though I've got my pain patches, I have no clue where to put them (other than on my neck earlier) because there's just so much pain and that would involve making a decision.
PS: Homeland Security: We're In Ur Website, Bein' All Racist. Someone on my twitter list was surprised. Yeah, she's white.
Meanhile, having seen that link, I wonder if this pain is just delayed tension or something.
ETA: Oh damn. I think I've rebroken that damn troublesome toe again.
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Philly Pool Club Boots Kids "There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club," John Duesler, President of The Valley Swim Club said in a statement."
Dear Post Racial America,
Second Verse, Same As The First.PS: Do not look at the comments. Apparently they'll make you genetically engineer some white+stupid erasing virus. ETA: Nice White Lady 'Debbie Schlussel Says' " But it's important to remember that while racism and bigotry will always exist everywhere on earth, in America it's rare, on the fringe, and generally frowned upon by most Americans (who are mostly fair and decent unlike elsewhere around the world)". No Debbie, it's not rare. That's the damn problem. And being a fair and decent human being has nothing to do with also being racist as all get out.
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People on my flist all happy and skippy about Torchwood and stuff? Torchwood aka more British fail on issues of racism, and disability? I'm just politely waiting for y'all to calm the fuck down and start using cut-tags again. Seriously.
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I know there's stuff going on about rape and rape culture, but I haven't said much of anything about it and I don't think I will be able to say much about it in the future. Too much personal issues to handle.
I've been of two minds as if to include the why or not. I've decided against it, since just thinking about it causes me womb pain and spasms.
I am going to lend another voice to the intersection of race and rape, however.
Beat the heat in Africa by going topless and creating a culture that doesn't fetishize that -> catch the eye of a white man -> forever be seen as a booty popping, sexually promiscuous child ready for the plucking.
Little black girls as their mothers scrub floors.
Imperialism and Colonialism of the Black Body does exist.
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ProCon Latte - Firefox Add On.
I tried it yesterday but I must have been really tired, because I didn't think things through and ended up uninstalling it. But today, staring at it again, my brain clicked in.
- Download and install.
- Restart Browser
- Go to Main Filter
- Click Enable Explicit Material
- Click on Edit List
- Delete all the blocked words.
- Delete all the blocked sites.
- Go down to FILTER ACTIVITY and choose Blocked Sites
- Go back up to Blocked Sites and add in all the URL's of everyone in Racefail you'd rather not accidentally click a link for ever, ever, again.
- PS: There is no need to add a * wildcard.
- Press Apply.
- Watch them all vanish from your internet experience.
__________I tried it just now and I can still load livejournal proper on Firefox, I just can't load those pages. And I don't have to worry about having more than 6 or 14 sites as per the other filter content add ons available. And it feels so damn good - especially considering that minutes before I clicked on a link and ended up a greyworm's LJ, having forgotten for a moment just wtf that spectacular human!fail was. I only remembered while I was reading and going WTFF??!! Now? No more worries about stumbling into something that will raise my blood pressure. *hugs to ![[info] - personal](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) quivo who offered a possible script* - Please don't bother yourself unless it's something you'd like to offer everyone who'd prefer NOT the pages to load with a warning, instead of them not loading at all. Now I just have to figure out a way to have a handy-dandy portable, easily updatable list of Fail!Authors for whenever I'm looking at books. JJot will only work online. Maybe a list in my phone?
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sami hits a point that I've only had in the back of mind as fire laden cursing.
I'm not saying it's impossible to write speculative fantasy on these premises - what I'm saying is that you can't do it as background. If you write a people out of existence as background, rather than as the setup for an exploration of how the world is different without their influence, then you're almost guaranteed to be doing it for reasons that are entirely offensive.
*points emphatically*
My curse laden thought that hadn't fully formed yet? "Why is it even when we're invisible/erased we're still fucking props?"
Cause that's how the concept of an America without Indigenous First Nations reads to me. And that's how it'd read to me if there was a book about Australia without Indigenous Peoples.
Y'know what that is? That's fucking Live Action Avatar: The Last Airbender. Take the land, the trees, the geography, the food and the necessity due to elements etc of architecture - just leave out the people.
And there are people fucking wondering what's meant when PoC say "And y'all do this shit. ALL. The. Time."
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I've just banned the first new white person (ie, someone I just met online) interacting with my journal, because they think it's possible to go too far, and don't see the big deal/what's so horribly wrong, with a world where the Native Americans just don't exist and the continent is empty and bare for Europeans to expand, settle and explore.
Apparently District 9 as I brought up earlier this week is people getting it OH SO WRONG. But OMG people are being harsh, hard, cruel and mean to poor McMaster Bujold!
White Women's Tears - Greasing hinges and invoking sympathy in white men, since time. fucking. memorial.
But not on my journal.
ETA /Some Extra Special:
Comment quote from regarding this current post:
Well. I saw your latest post.
That was unnecessary.
And, frankly, racist.
But if that's how you feel, then I guess that's that.
It truly was good to know you. I'm sorry it had to end like this.
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Rather than have a battle of the utensils, I'm going to officially convert some of my spoons, ala The Spoon Theory (PDF), into Forks. I'm a disabled black lesbian dinocorn. I can totally do this with my magic powers.
Spoons are about those of us with mental and physical disabilities rationing out our energy.
Forks are about those of us dealing with the mental and physical social handicaps of not being white.
In modern westernized society, not being white is an issue requiring energy. Do you point out the racist joke at work? Do you ignore the racist jerk on the bus, at the diner, sitting at your table beside your family member who obviously likes them. Do you point out the racist content in books, and music? Do you ignore and grit your teeth and tolerate people acting as if your ancestors never contributed anything but blood and fear of rape to the building of America; to the ending of World Wars (the liberation of France at the end of WW2 - white/light skin soldiers only, who cares about the brown skinned people who died), Code Talkers, to people assuming non white peoples have done nothing for global civilization infrastructure, technology, culinary arts and who think that Elvis invented rock and roll?
Sometimes, you just don't have the energy, it would take too much out of your life and your attempts to pursue your own happiness to pause to slap some honkey upside the head, or correct some well meaning progressive white person showing and parting their buttcheeks.
Sometimes, if you have to deal with just one more clueless and ignorant white-is-the-default racist comment, you feel you might go postal, or hermit or end up under evaluation half covered in your own blood from trying to claw your eyes out.
For those times, I say we discuss our lack of forks. Because every day we wake up non-white, we only have a certain amount of forks at our disposal. And if we want to make it all the way through a week without killing some moo-cow or pantsless Sh*tterly, we have to store them up and judge how and when to use them. And while we can borrow against tomorrow's forks and sometimes even next month's forks, it's draining and can lead to burn out and can lead to smacking someone red in the face cause the fool dared to touch our hair without asking and we had but one fork left for the ride home and we weren't going to give it up to them.
I hope with the Fork Theory, people will understand why some PoC/NWP just abstain, or sigh, or walk away. I hope it will help people understand why PoC/NWP do. not. have. the. time. to teach them how to be better white people.
Psst. Pass it around.
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So apparently healthy/able bodied individuals have been using spoons to mean generic units of energy in regard their interaction in various racist battle fronts.
...
Yeah, I'm a little speechless, I'd have thought it was obvious once one looked at the written out Spoon Theory (PDF) that it was about ability to cope vs lack of ability to cope, all revolving around disability. But apparently not.
I am twitchy, however, at the complaint as it is laid out here, mainly because of this quote:
when queers were protesting prop 8 with "gay is the new black", i didn't like it. this was (white) queers co-opting the (straight) black experience.
the use of the spoons metaphor is (able-bodied) poc co-opting the (white) disabled experience.
What am I? Fucking INVISIBLE? Have I reached the level of DINOCORN now? Black lesbian and disabled doesn't exist? Cause I was not aware that The Spoon Theory was primarily a white disabled concept. My bad, I've been appropriating for years now in using it and will keep appropriating it cause excuse me but hello! Non white people can have mental and physical stuff going on too! G'damn but there's some assumptions going on that the people using it, AREN'T disabled, because what? They're not white? No one could POSSIBLY have more than one oppression/social handicap to deal with? Your WTF Rocketship Is Boarding. Get on it and get the hell off my planet. ETA: Stoneself's pov =
a person defaults straight white male able-bodied cisgendered [privlege] [privilege] [privilege]
a gay man defaults white.
a poc defaults male.
a queer defaults cisgendered.
etcetcetc.
Right, I guess that explains how they see the world.
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My Dad's been following Racefail 09 after all. I knew he'd get around to reading it eventually. But he's sent me email. And he doesn't think I've been an ass. So mental skippy! for me! :)
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David Cohen, political cartoonist, does a piece on "Post Racial America". He and PETA are tying for new first place in Racefail 09.
I'm a need a more violent default icon for 09. Seriously.
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PETA dresses up like KKK.
I tell you, it's something in the water. At 12.01am January 1st, STUPID WHITE PEOPLE, the catalytic enzyme was dropped in the water reserves, the world over. 2009 is determined to take the cake, eat it, and then photograph it when it comes back out.
Anyway, I have to make a note to look up other organizations that deal with animal cruelty cause PETA can kiss my black ass.
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Jews. Masons. Crazy + Google = Jackie Mason & The Jewish Mason Dixon Line.
Can I get a little help from any Jews on my flist? I was reading over at ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) kita0610 and saw something mentioned "Judo Mason Conspiracy" also 'Jews. Masons. Crazy'. Can I get some links or extra context?
( I'm so confused )
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Random surfing tonight (coughing is boring and painful) before I go to bed had me puddling around FA sites. I'm not quite sure how I got there. But I was enjoying reading some very interesting articles and then I came across this comment.
This is probably why so many thin people feel awkward about joining the fat acceptance movement. It’s almost become like when Black people say, “Well you don’t understand it at all, cause you’re not Black!”*
I would hate for the fat acceptance movement become something so closed-minded and self-absorbed like that. And I remembered, yeah. Right. That's why I avoid these sites and these people and these women in particular. Hmm, now I think about it I may have wondered from The Rotund. Where's the WoC Fat Girls webring? I should stick exclusively to that. Hilight for Link: http:// kateharding.net/2008/05/06/how-it-works/#comment-54185
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I think I need to disengage from the crazy woman. Because she's a patronizing idiot.
Her: What needed to happen was what did. My dad said, "Oh for heaven's sake, Auntie. Nothing is going to happen!" And she listened because it came from someone she trusted.
I'm truly sorry that you see reaching out to people and building bridges as ass kissing. Perhaps you think I'm kissing your ass that I think that you are important to talk to? That I think we are on the same side and need to be able to work together? Me:
Talking to a black woman about the tone of her argument and why can't she see reason about changing said tone in talking to her oppressors is not the smartest thing you have ever done in your life. Ever.
http://zvi-likes-tv.livejournal.com/429727.html
Though really, she started off comparing protest marches to KKK rallies. So right off the damn bat I saw the crazy and probably shouldn't have engaged in the first place. But you know, I think sometimes you just can't believe the crazy right in front of your eyes. I think the other thing was my disbelief that someone would actually bring the tone argument up during 2008 when we've HAD that discussion, not just about fandom and fannish things, but about the ELECTION OF THE POTUS. The whole damn world seemed to be having that conversation. Willow's thoughts on tone.
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I just watched Ahkeela and the Bee. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I'd been wincing internally at the thought of watching yet another show about the push behind the accomplishment of a PoC; in this case a young girl.
But it wasn't that. It was about spelling as a refuge and how it became a skill that could take the protagonist places.
And watching the ending I realized it was a film I'd enjoyed where the only really involved white character was the principal. The rest of reality, of course was filled with white folks; announcers, judges, etc. And I found myself thinking if there were people who'd look at the movie and see 'Black Special Interest Movie' and not just, a movie.
Yes, there were moments of reflection on Slavery and Civil Rights and what it means to come from a certain neighbourhood. But that's a part of the history and culture of any black person living in the US in a movie about someone black living in the US. And so I found myself wondering about just what it is that makes whites get so affronted and angry and bring up 'reverse racism' (an impossible thing - just noting here) when there are movies or books or venues revolving around the African American / Minority American experience.
I started writing this thinking I had an idea of what it was, but now I'm not so sure. I just know there seems to be this immediate need to refute that minority history in the country is different and created a different culture. I started to think that you don't see the same response if someone brings up Italian history or Greek history. But then I thought of MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING and the fact that the reactions there towards Greeks as just being foreign weren't out of place at all. I could nod my head at the 'Oh, someone at the office is X and you're X so maybe you know them. You all know each other, right?' and other stupidities and assumptions.
So I'm left thinking that for the most part the Italian and Greek and Irish and even Swedish and Norwegian Immigrant (and depending on the time frame minority) experiences have been embraced and enfolded into the main and standard. But minority (NDN, Black, African, Asian, South East Asian, East Indian, Middle Eastern, and others I've likely missed) are left on the outside. Maybe because it's one thing to remember No Dogs No Irish. And another thing to remember 400 years of abuse, restrictions and depravity that actually formed the foundation for affluence in this country. Maybe it's another thing to think about the Chinese who built the railroads and who were treated for so long as 'Scary Yellow People'. Maybe it's that other thing to think about polio blankets and village massacres and land stealing.
Maybe white culture (US culture specifically) would rather deny those experiences as being part of reality; would rather delegate them to little corners like cobwebs in an unswept house - because it would be 'too painful' to admit what was done. And so for the sake of sparing themselves pain, they continue to perpetrate. And the moment any mention is made of the obvious differences that minorities can't sweep under a rug somewhere and pretend didn't really happen it's seen as a "You're trying to blame us/guilt us/ shame us/ make us feel pain. AND WE WON'T HAVE IT!!!"
Huh, the whole thing boils down to selfishness? Clearly my brain's gone whacky.
Anyway, Ahkeela and the Bee - good movie with lovely moments including a very rational moment by one character who's portrayed as being incredibly pressured.
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If you're on dial-up, tis a shame you'll miss this. But this is the best response to racist shite that I've seen in a long time.
It's too long for me to transcribe. It'd include transcribing the original racist comment and possibly adding the spelling and grammar corrections and then trying to describe her amazing 'I'm gonna breed like you can't believe and infest your country'. Plus there's the cutest bit at the end that just you have to see it to get it.
Ahh dial up sucks. And the memory is all too recent. But this response is gold.
via lurkerwithout
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I am seriously going through some "G'damn white women' right now. If I know you, obviously you're not some anonymous, self labeling as feminist, can't see reality for the slap upside the face, white woman.
But other than that?
I am having some issues of aggressive rage and discontent. I thought I was over my rage and discontent. Unfortunately circumstances have arrived that had me facing and realizing the "on display" nature of several accomplished PoC actors. And I am deeply wanting to lash out because of how violating it feels.
Yes, the actors chose their roles. But it is the realization of the limits of those roles and of the strictures that bound those roles, of the role within the role that has my blood heated. And given how much I happened to respect two characters and their actors in particular this is just hitting extremely hard. It's as if I'm having a 15 year delay in the rage I should have had when hearing about slave inspections in my Rite of Passage Program.
I will be hunting for a way to appease this anger and if I can't find one - then everything for next Wed will get bumped in therapy so a professional can help me.
Note: This anger is also being fed by some stupid ass women wallowing in transphobia and also trying to tell transpeople who they are and how they feel because she's a feminist therefore SHE knows. With a dollop of MtF aren't real women and FtM aren't real men.
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This is mostly for me. Don't want to read it? Heaving a sigh? Skip it.
( Read more... )
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Am I the only one who saw this comment on a post via Roungup about US laws allowing seizure and copying from electronic devices? The comment talks about asking for a supervisor and threatening to sue and claiming to have the individuals on camera.
And my first thought was - "Yeah, you can do that - if you're white."
Am I just jaded?
Cause seriously my first thought is, someone brown, or black, gold or red who's stopped in a US airport and has their phone, laptop or mp3 player demanded for sieizure (for copying, for looking, whatever) who then starts, while being polite and even toned, making trouble - their ass is grass.
Didn't they think a Hawaiian girl with an LED on her shirt was a suicide bomber? Didn't they point guns at her and pin her to the floor? Have we heard anything else about that MIT girl who got an up front and brutal look at how you get treated if you're brown and Airport Security pounces you?
Is it because I'm currently extra stressed about what I'll be doing/living/happening to me next month that I just found myself thinking ' - You and I live in two different Americas.
And yeah, I'm not commenting to the post because this is just me going 'Wow - my pov. Wow'. Not gonna start nothing so they won't be nothing. The OP's thoughts on having as clean as possible a laptop until things get sorted out with the law, make sense to me. And I also ponder the economic influences to something that could make people leave behind their Personal Media Players, Portable Game Players, MP3/4 players etc. And phones are becoming more and more multi-capable.
But the thread of conversation there just brought up the thought of Two Americas. And in mine, a sickly infant suffers complications and dies because he and his mother are brown. His mother's Samoan even though he's American. And air port security kept mother, infant and nurse in an unventilated hot room so someone with higher authority COULD show up to deal with them.
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Chopchica does post-mortem.
I've sat and thought about if I wanted to say anything, if I had anything different to say. But it all boils down to what she said - there under a bright and shiny and seemingly careless surface, is racism. And for me, the name change feels like something very small - good, but small. Because I don't believe the game's moderators and players realized or learned anything.
I think they walked away from this huffy and upset at having their racist and insensitive actions called out.
I think they walked away from this talking about those whiny Jews and Jew lovers.
I think they walked away from this thinking about how the Jews want to own the Holocuast.
I think they walked away from this with any little knowledge they had about homosexuals, the physically and mentally handicaped and blacks who were also in the camps - completely drummed out of their heads with words like cunt and bitches and sheep.
I think they walked away from this thinking that it was just bad timing to have promoted the game so close to Holocaust Remembrance Day.
For hours they watched people comment; upset and outraged and hurt and disgusted. They watched human beings say 'This is wrong! Please stop being so wrong!' and all they could think about was their sense of entitlement and that if someone brings up a point that hurt their feelings there should be cock sucking and petting and pampering to make them feel better and THAT would be what prompted them to change anything at all. As if racial sensitivity was some kind of trade.
For hours they ignored the very simple, plain and easily understood fact that intent does not matter when someone is hurt.
I think behind locked posts some of them will still refer to the game, or the game's timeline point as The Night of Breaking Glass.
I think marieantoinette is not the only individual who thinks the Holocaust was 'something in the past that should not be dwelled on'. I think she is not the only one who is like to believe the same for slavery. If the Holocaust was 'Oh my gosh 70' years ago, then Slavery being centuries away is what she'll focus on. Never mind that Jim Crow Laws and Segregation are only forty years away.
The fact that after so many commented, someone could come to my journal to ask me just why I was upset...
It boggles the mind.
I am reminded of all the times, in other conversations where things went pretty much the exact same way - someone brings up "But I went to Japan and they reverse discriminated against me!!" As if a country filled with people who lost a war, and who suffered terrible tragedies like Hiroshima and Nagasaki actually have the power to do anything but make an individual feel uncomfortable. And even then, within the culture, it would have to be an individual who felt above following the norms of the society they were visiting.
I bring this up because all this defensiveness and spitting swear words and back up determination to stay in the wrong, seems to come from feeling guilt and having discomfort.
Guilt & Discomfort.
Those are the reasons the pain and suffering, the humiliation and anger of formerly and still currently oppressed peoples are to be ignored.
Guilt & Discomfort.
To admit that you were careless, thoughtless and insensitive is to face guilt and discomfort. I don't believe that all racism is based completely on this, but I do believe that a goodly part of the racism that infects individuals who want to claim that they're good people - comes from guilt and discomfort.
And energy.
They'd have to learn something. They're angry at having to learn something. They're angry at having to spend time and energy learning something. And rather than be angry at their ancestors who treated various groups of people as if they were less than nothing - it's easier to be angry at the descendents of those groups for bringing things up. As if racism were not a cancer that when ignored continues to consume society, multiplying cell by cell, thought by thought, invading and possessing.
I am well aware that there are individuals behind the journals that were involved in this. And I'm left thinking of those individuals that spoke, and the ones who let a few doing the speaking for them. And I'm left KNOWING they're not at all nice or good people. They want things easy. They want anything that isn't easy to just go away and leave them alone. If they don't think about living in an Apartheid State then it isn't true. Cause America is great! America's #1 and how dare you insinuate, how dare you accuse its children of not being perfect.
____
For the moderators of ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif) asylum_promo, I do not wish to have any further communications from Keieeeye. Her concept of PR clean up is seriously lacking.
For prairiecrow A better term for what went on would be imbroglio and not wank. Racism and anti-semitism are not the same as shipping wars and who's the best NuWho Companion. But it's just a suggestion from someone "childish and impulsive".
For ardath_rekha While I do not believe in your apology, I am grateful that you took the time to apologise and risked doing so on the journal of someone who was and is incredibly upset by what happened. I have unscreened the apology on my post but I also point people here to where you posted the apology to anyone still tracking things.
To anyone wishing they could comment or start/continue conversation in my journal - I'm sorry, but I cannot handle conversation right now. I am still far too incredibly angry and upset. Chopchica has comments open - if you have an LJ you can go there.
ETA: I am not exempting the British Isles, or Europe from containing idiots and assholes and a strong sense of superiority.
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I've been uploading icons, tagging them, putting up a (my personal use only) on ones that I don't want ganked. And I started feeling REALLY selfish. And then I caught that feeling and looked at it. Without putting up the words that say 'these icons are not meant for sharing' I still don't want them shared, but somehow I don't feel selfish.
So I poked the thought.
I don't know why it's there and I'm not even going to guess, at least not right now. I gave myself a stern talking to and explained to myself that if I was someone who wanted to share the icons she makes on an ongoing basis - I'd be making a lot of icons and/or have an icon comm or post where I put up all the icons I want to pass around to other people.
But I make my icons for me. When I spend the time and energy making an icon for someone else, it's at their request or as a gift or something like that.
I don't know where the little voice in my head saying 'selfish' is coming from. But it feels all wrapped up in expectations and niceness and being a girl, for some reason; That putting up boundaries and pointing them out is bad. It made me think of the Open Source Boob Project and Race (white folk wanting to touch the hair) and unspoken peer pressure.
I'd always been rather proud that I got over going with the crowd at an early age, even if it was because my deal and their deal were so effing different. But here I am feeling invisible censor from I know not who and this pressure to be 'nice' even if it makes me feel uncomfortable / makes me feel compromised in self and identity.
And my brain skipped right to Amanda Marcotte and the love-fest that's apparently happening in her blog despite her actions and previous words. I realized the lovefest is not ABOUT Amanda. If you realized this before, please don't laugh at me. I realized that all the 'Brave and Courageous' etc talk is those people being RELIEVED.
No matter how skewed the message they got about race growing up, no matter what they then learned about oppression while fighting for 'feminist' causes, they just can't take the discomfort and the invisible censor that comes with fucking up, not thinking, watching the self for privilege. So of course Amanda is brave in their eyes for sacrificing herself so that they have a logical rebuttal to give to the invisible censor pointing out racism. Of course she's a race hero.
And it follows of course the WoC who bring up inequalities and dismissals and invisibility are treated the way they are. It's a physical voice backing up the invisible censor. It's why we seem mean, we're adding to the load and the noise.
The stereotypes of strong black woman, wise aboriginal individual, exotic and spiritual asian suddenly make a whole lot more sense to me when I think of them in the context of individuals who find internal resources to push through the outer censor, society, to stand up for their rights. Our heroes are everyday heroes who learn to ignore at an early age the peer pressure of those who want to be comfortable.
And suddenly I feel harsher against individuals who claim that 'it's all in the past, folk need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps'. Because apparently even though not all of them can move past peer pressure, my people and my larger community are expected to; we're expected to buck 400 yrs of violent peer pressure. We're expected to ignore the invisible censor that's been floating for decades upon decades in society, that compares Amerindian and Aboriginal Peoples to dogs.
G'damn that's unfair as fuck.
* Be better than us, but don't get too uppity now.
* G'damn you bitches for being stronger! For being loud. For being educated. For pointing things out.
* You better stop whining at us and get yourselves together to get out the ghetto, off the rez, out of the gutter! We're not responsible!
* What is your yellow/red/black/brown ass doing where it don't belong, boy/girl? Go back home to the ghetto/rez/Asiantown
Geeze, fuck, world. You are seriously messed up.
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On Being White & Having A Black Name
Even if it's a very tiny percent. The world does not completely suck. It only sucks most of the time.
PS:
My real first name? If people don't see me, they pronounce it to their best ability as something french. If they do see me, they assume it is one of three distinct and commonly black names, somehow 'spelled uniquely'.
It kind of always got to me that if I were Candice, the moment people saw the colour of my skin they just HAD to pronounce it as CANDY ICE.
This post made me think too on why each and every one of them, doctor and nurses to federal employees always smiled once they saw I had a book in my hand and went 'So you're a reader'. However, if that book was a trade paperback comic? They have often been impatient and brusque. I never thought about why I don't take comic books out of the house with me to certain appointments, I just didn't.
ETA: Don't read the comments. They slide back into world suckage.
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In order to distract myself, I'd like to write up a few thoughts I've had about LEGALLY BLONDE - THE MUSICAL. When I went up to Boston, fickle showed me the MTV televised broadcast of the musical. I'm now curious to actually read the book; more curious than I was when I first saw the movie, because I've actually put the book on hold.
( Here There Be Musical Spoilers... Of A Sort )
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So I saw someone link to this early this morning and I said - Oh, it's SQL again.
Only it's not.
It's Robert. Fucking. Downy. Jr.
In BLACKFACE.
The link takes you to someone white who tells you why it's not offensive and if you find it offensive, you hate movies and actors.
I....
*sics giant flesh eating arachnids at them*
Oh Roughneck Chronicles, is there anything you CAN'T Solve?
(Private note: In RC, Johnny Rico isn't drawn as a white bread guy)
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pissed off
exhausted
confused & contemplative
incredulous
hungry
amused
indescribable
incredibly upset
thinky