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boyfridged · 1 year

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i’ve been thinking a lot about what is so unique and appealing about 80s robin jay’s moral standing that got completely lost in plot later on. and i think a huge part of it is that in a genre so focused on crime-fighting, his motivations and approach don’t focus on the category of crime at all. in fact, he doesn’t seem to believe in any moral dogma; and it’s not motivated by nihilism, but rather his open-heartedness and relational ethical outlook.

we first meet (post-crisis) jay when he is stealing. when confronted about his actions by bruce he’s confident that he didn’t do anything wrong – he’s not apologetic, he doesn’t seem to think that he has morally failed on any account. later on, when confronted by batman again, jay says that he’s no “crook.” at this point, the reader might assume that jay has no concept of wrong-doing, or that stealing is just not one of the deeds that he considers wrong-doing. yet, later on we see jay so intent on stopping ma gunn and her students, refusing to be implicit in their actions. there are, of course, lots of reasons for which we can assume he was against stealing in this specific instance (an authority figure being involved, the target, the motivations, the school itself being an abusive environment etc.), but what we gather is that jay has an extremely strong sense of justice and is committed to moral duty. that's all typical for characters in superhero comics, isn't it? however, what remains distinctive is that this moral duty is not dictated by any dogma – he trusts his moral instincts. this attitude – his distrust toward power structures, confidence in his moral compass, and situational approach, is something that is maintained throughout his robin run. it is also evident in how he evaluates other people – we never see him condemning his parents, for example, and that includes willis, who was a petty criminal. i think from there arises the potential for a rift between bruce and jay that could be, have jay lived, far more utilised in batman comics than it was within his short robin run.

after all, while bruce’s approach is often called a ‘philosophy of love and care,’ he doesn’t ascribe to the ethics of care [eoc] (as defined in modern scholarship btw) in the same way that jay does. ethics of care ‘deny that morality consists in obedience to a universal law’ and focus on the ideals of caring for other people and non-institutionalized justice. bruce, while obviously caring, is still bound by his belief in the legal system and deontological norms. he is benevolent, but he is also ultimately morally committed to the idea of a legal system and thus frames criminals as failing to meet these moral (legal-adjacent) standards (even when he recognizes it is a result of their circumstances). in other words, he might think that a criminal is a good person despite leading a life of crime. meanwhile, for jay there is no despite; jay doesn't think that engaging in crime says anything about a person's moral personality at all. morality, for him, is more of an emotional practice, grounded in empathy and the question of what he can do for people ‘here and now.’ he doesn’t ascribe to maxims nor utilitarian calculations. for jay, in morality, there’s no place for impartiality that bruce believes in; moral decisions are embedded within a net of interpersonal relationships and social structures that cannot be generalised like the law or even a “moral code” does it. it’s all about responsiveness.

to sum up, jay's moral compass is relative and passionate in a way that doesn't fit batman's philosophy. this is mostly because bruce wants to avoid the sort of arbitrariness that seems to guide eoc. also, both for vigilantism, and jay, eoc poses a challenge in the sense that it doesn't create a certain 'intellectualised' distance from both the victims and the perpetrators; there's no proximity in the judgment; it's emotional.

all of this is of course hardly relevant post-2004. there might be minimal space for accommodating some of it within the canon progression (for example, the fact that eoc typically emphasises the responsibility that comes with pre-existing familial relationships and allows for prioritizing them, as well as the flexibility regarding moral deliberations), but the utilitarian framework and the question of stopping the crime vs controlling the underworld is not something that can be easily reconciled with jay’s previous lack of interest in labeling crime.

#fyi i'm ignoring a single panel in which jay says 'evil wins. he chose the life of crime' because i think there's much more nuance to that #as in: choosing a life of crime to deliberately cause harm is a whole another matter #also: inb4 this post is not bruce slander. please do not read it as such #as i said eoc is highly criticised for being arbitrary which is something that bruce seeks to avoid #also ethics of care are highly controversial esp that their early iterations are gender essentialist and ascribe this attitude to women #wow look at me accidentally girl-coding jay #but also on the topic of post-res jay.#it's typically assumed that ethics of care take a family model and extend it into morality as a whole #'the ethics of care considers the family as the primary sphere in which to understand ethical behavior'#so #an over-simplification: you are allowed to care for your family over everything else #re: jay's lack of understanding of bruce's conflict in duty as batman vs father #for jay there's no dilemma. how you conduct yourself in the familial context determines who you are as a person #also if you are interested in eoc feel free to ask because googling will only confuse you...#as a term it's used in many weird ways. but i'm thinking about a general line of thought that evolves into slote's philosophy #look at me giving in and bringing philosophy into comics. sorry. i tried to simplify it as much as possible #i didn't even say anything on criminology and the label and the strain theories.#i'm so brave for not info-dumping #i said even though i just info-dumped #jay.zip #jay.txt #dc #fatal flaw #core texts #robin days

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canichangemyblogname · 5 months

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I don't think most people understand how difficult it is to prosecute war crimes or charge a nation with genocide. Many of us are seeing sociologists and historians point out the conditions in Gaza, explaining how they meet the conditions for genocide. But while we can identify how the current conditions can bring about the destruction, in whole or in part, of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, there is one thing that international law needs prosecutors to prove in a trial: intent.

The Geneva Convention has a very narrow definition of genocide. This definition includes a physical element that lists exactly 5 acts: (1) Killing members of the group; (2) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (3) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (4) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (5) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. But it also includes a mental element: "intent to destroy."

This is the most difficult thing to prove. Other potential violations of International law and the Geneva Convention do not suffice as evidence of intent. International lawyers would look for something they might refer to as a "smoking gun": incriminating evidence that shows a coordinated plan aimed at the destruction of the essential foundations of life for a national group to annihilate the group itself. They will want dates, locations, identifiable victims, and specific, systematic actions to show a pattern of behavior in order to establish dolus directus.

Prosecuting international crimes can take years, and some have argued that the tactics of modern "warfare," like remote bombing, make intent harder to prove. Under a bombing campaign, the architects of violence aren't-- for example-- loading people onto a bus or a train and transferring them to fields or camps to be killed, something which would be used to show systematic, patterned behaviors to legally establish that "intent to destroy." They simply press a button to launch a rocket at a stated objective, killing people. It's removed, so under a bombing campaign, civilians are not the stated targets; they're the rhetorical "collateral damage." Bombing does a fuck-ton of damage. Choosing to utilize such a brutal tactic requires a State to target civilian infrastructure and tolerate mass civilian deaths. The intention of bombing *is* mass injury and death, but the question remains: are the civilians targeted deliberately *as a group* for their national, ethnic, racial, or religious membership?

Victims of genocide are deliberately targeted *because* of their membership (real or perceived) to a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. This *excludes* political groups. Meaning, it is entirely possible for a State to mount a *legal* (not moral) defense of the mass killing of civilians by arguing that the civilians were targeted due to their perceived membership to a political group (like Hamas) rather than for their ethnic or national group membership. It is also entirely possible for a State to mount a *legal* (not moral) defense of the mass killing of civilians by arguing that civilians weren't targeted for their group membership but, rather, caught up in the violence due to their proximity to combatants.

Just keep in mind: it is incredibly difficult to prove intent, and proving it takes years of international investigation.

#Genocide can also be committed against only a part of the group #as long as that part is identifiable (like in a specific or narrow geographical area) and 'substantial'#Gaza #genocide #Israel #Palestine

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thechanelmuse · 2 years

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That little ass comment box and it’s limits on the length I can type is driving me nuts. Let’s do this on a clean post 🙃.

@khalif-horton

I don’t know Yvette Carnell like that; I only know of her looking for a gold sticker for whatever she’s doing/done and being a leader of an organization. I’m not in search of a leader. I’m firm on lineage-based federal and state reparations for Black Americans (preferably federal before states), an Anti-Black Hate Crime bill and data disaggregation. Lineage-based because our ancestors built the United States through forced chattel labor that others immigrated to, and you can’t do anything to benefit one race (so they say 🙃) because it violates the 14th amendment.

Data disaggregation makes things clearer in wealth disparity amongst other things, but also for anyone having that strange identity crisis as to who they truly are simply because they were born in the United States. This is why lineage matters. I can’t be me while they’re being me and them simultaneously. Hence the student union example. Disaggregation should’ve been done, but wasn’t as another layered undermining tactic. Heavy state and federal penalties needs to be attached with falsifying to simply garner whatever benefits and resources. You also won’t have shit like the likes of Rachel Dolezal and Mindy Kaling’s brother sliding through.

Racially Black people are different ethnic groups with distinct histories, cultures and the ancestral lands where our ancestors were ultimately rooted. We’ll prob disagree on that. You’re a Pan-African and I am not.

Reparations is not for racism. It’s a debt owed. But I also want genocide and theft in there which links to Jim Crow and it’s governmental sanctions, the bombing and torch of our businesses and towns that were kept desolate or turned into lakes, 15 million acres of land—including farmland and heirs property—stolen down to 1 million acres left, etc. People be out here passing around videos of Black Americans being exterminated by the slave patrol police like white people used to do with those postcards of lynching barbecues. It’s genocide. (It’s not lost on me it happens to other racially Black people who look like us.)

Black Americans make up 50% of the homeless in our country, including our vets and those on Skid Row. Our median wealth is projected to be 0 by 2053. We have to advocate for us. Ain’t nobody coming to save us. People are just onlooking. Ain’t no UN coming despite us checking off every box per their definition of genocide:

Killing members of the group;

Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [black maternal mortality]

Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. [that child trafficking CPS that remove a child for any reason they choose and ASFA]

So, you don’t support a particular form of reparations, but you’ve been involved in reparations work for 2 years? What does that even mean?

CARICOM has their own reparations plan going to get what’s owed from that damn Queen and other countries that played a part in the enslavement and labor of their ancestors. The African Union has their own thing going for the Scramble for Africa. Black Americans will not survive without reparations and the country won’t survive without us. The government knows it. It’s spite. People know. So what do you support specifically as redress for Black Americans?

SN: What I mean by “racially” Black - We know race doesn’t exist, but is a caste here which people who immigrate or are born here via immigrants are funneled into by choice or not. Opposed to “Black” as an ethnicity, which some Black Americans still use like an ethnic group.

And about that celebrate part you mentioned in your other comment. I’m doing it for the ancestors. Ancestors like Callie Guy House and Isaiah Dickerson been leading the way, like when they started The National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief Bounty and Pension Association in 1894. People like them were waking up other ancestors to be firm in knowing they were owed. A lot of Black Americans today have awakened while others are continuing to wake up. So I celebrate for the ancestors even if it’s small strides leading to bigger ones.

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aspoonofsugar · 3 years

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Semblance of the Soul: Qrow and Raven

The Branwens are two people with a shared past, that have taken different routes in life:

Ozpin: Everyone has a choice. The Branwens chose to accept their powers and the responsibilities that came with them. And later, one of them chose to abandon her duties in favor of her own self-interest.

Qrow has made an altruistic choice. He hates the crimes of his tribe and is happy to help people by working for Ozpin.

Raven has instead decided to prioritize herself and her tribe and sees Ozpin’s cause as foolish and reckless.

At the same time, they are twins, but have chosen different families. This is why the concept of family comes up so often in their interactions. After all, they first meet in the episode called Family:

Raven: Hello, brother.

Qrow: Raven. So, what do you want?

Raven: A girl can't just catch up with her family?

And their last exchange is this:

Raven: Sorry, brother. Sometimes family disappoints you like that.

Qrow: We're not family anymore.

Raven: Were we ever?

Qrow: I thought so, but I guess I was wrong.

Still, how are they doing with their families of choice? Are they happy with them? Do they have healthy relationships?

For the both of them, the answer is no. This happens because Raven and Qrow are both scared to grow close to people.

It is just that this fear is declined in opposite ways. Raven is scared for herself (selfishness), while Qrow is scared for others (selflessness).

This trait they share, but show in different ways, is well conveyed by their respective semblances. This analysis will use their powers as means to explore both characters and their foiling.

RAVEN: BIRDS OF A FEATHER

Raven’s Kindred Link perfectly embodies the saying...

Birds of a feather flock together...

...until the cat comes:

Raven: I...I'm sorry...

On one hand it lets her create portals to the people she has a strong bond with.

On the other hand she mostly uses it to run away from those bonds.

Why does she do it?

The answer is clear:

Lionheart: I'm helping her for the same reason you are - I'm afraid. We... we can't stop her... no one can...

Raven is just another version of the Cowardly Lion. She is a coward like Leo, but does not aknowledge it and prefers to hide behind a pragmatic and survivalist mask:

Raven: That's why I tried to leave when I did. I'm not afraid, I'm smart.

This is why she goes back to her tribe after she leaves Yang and Tai. She says she does so because she considers them her family and wants to protect them.

However, her motivations are implied to be more selfish. She goes to them to run away from things that scare her.

To be more specific, the tribe protects Raven psychologically in two different ways.

1) It lets her be the monster, the criminal, the most violent and powerful one:

Mercury: We’re the guys you should be afraid of.

Raven: I doubt anyone should be afraid of you.

Here, Raven mocks Mercury, but the irony is that her coping mechanism is really not that much different from his. She hides behind a Grimm mask, a universal symbol of fear, but she is the scared one.

2) She goes back to the family who raised her and neglects the family she is supposed to raise (Yang).

Deep down, Raven is just an adult, who fails at being an adult.

Mostly, this shows in her inability to make a choice:

Yang: Which is it, mom? Are you merciful, or are you a survivor?

As a matter of fact she keeps changing her mind because she is not brave enough to stick to one decision.

Initially, she is sent to Beacon, so that she could learn how to kill hunters. However, she ends up becoming a huntress herself and she accepts to fight Salem. She is considered so loyal that she is even given magical powers. Finally, she enters a relationship and has a daughter with Tai. She basically starts creating a life outside the tribe, only to leave it all behind at a certain point. It is not clear if it is because she saw something specific or if it is the result of a longer struggle.

The point is that nobody forced her to fight Salem. She could have also refused Ozpin’s powers. Finally, she could have told Ozpin and the others she wanted to stop. In any case, she did not have to leave her family to stop fighting Salem. What is more, she could have brought her family with her, when she ran away.

She chooses instead to leave everything she has built behind and goes back to the world she was a child in. It might be a violent world, but she sees it as safer.

Let’s highlight that she has the same tendency of changing idea in the series itself. She switches sides and organizes a risky plan, which puts almost all her major bonds (Qrow, Vernal and Yang) in danger. She does all that because she wants the relic, so that she has leverage against Salem. After all of this, even after Vernal’s death, she simply runs away. She is obviously shaken by her confrontation with Yang, who calls her out. However, Yang is perfectly right when she says so:

Yang: Because you're afraid of Salem!!! And if you thought having Maiden powers put a target on your back, imagine what she'll do when she finds out you have a Relic. She'll come after you with everything she has. Or she can come after me. And I'll be standing there, waiting for her.

Taking the relic would just put Raven in danger. For her it is safer to open the vault and disappear, so that someone else can take care of things. Even if this someone else is her daughter.

In other words, Raven is a failure of a mother. This is shown by her failing all three of her “daughters” (Yang, the Spring Maiden and Vernal). Moreover, it is perfectly conveyed by her being a Maiden.

The idea of maidenhood is symbolically juxtaposed to the one of motherhood. Of course, this does not have to be true in-universe for all the Maidens. Still, in Raven’s case, this juxtaposition is deliberate. Raven is an eternal Maiden, who runs away from her parental responsibilities.

This is why she received the power from her protegee instead than from a mentor figure. She is so selfish she takes from the people she should protect:

Cinder: Vernal was a decoy the whole time. The last Spring Maiden must've trusted you a great deal before she died. I bet that was a mistake...

What is more, it is strongly implied she killed the previous Maiden to take her powers. This is interesting because it ties to a second meaning of her semblance.

Her ability symbolizes the unfairness of the bonds she forges. She works to create those bonds and there is affection involved. However, these bonds are double edged swords for the other party involved because of Raven’s moodiness. She can leave when she wants and come back out of the blue. She can always go to others when she needs it, while others can never reach her. This leads to an unbalanced dynamic in Raven’s favour.

This dynamic can even become extremely dangerous for the other person:

Raven can potentially use her ability to attack the people she is bonded with. She does not use her semblance this way in the series. Still, what happened to the Spring Maiden is something similar. To receive the power of the Maiden, Raven must have been the last person in the girl’s thoughts before death. This probably happened because the two shared a close bond. A bond Raven betrayed.

In other words, the nature of Raven’s semblance hides in itself the potential of betrayal:

Raven: Aura can't protect your arm, it's Grimm. You turned yourself into a monster just for power.

Cinder: Look who's talking...

As Cinder points out, Raven too, like her, has become a monster to obtain power. The difference here is in how this montrosity is conveyed.

In Cinder’s case, she is literally turning into a Grimm. She has accepted this metamorphosis to take the Maidens’ powers.

In Raven’s case, it is ironically the opposite symbolically. She wears a Grimm mask, but the true monstrosity is the Maiden behind it:

Raven is monster-like because she stole the power from a person, who trusted her.

Let’s highlight that the motif of the Grimm mask has come up several times in the series. So far, it has been used by people, like Raven and Adam, who want to be feared. Something similar can be seen in the Hound as well, who is not really wearing a mask, but whose humanity is hidden behind his Grimm appearance.

In all three cases, the true scary thing is what is behind the Grimm-face:

It is always the humanity behind it that is scary. Be it the victim behind the monster in the Hound, society’s mistreatment of Faunus or Raven’s cowardice and what it led her to do:

Yang: You're right. I don't know you. I only know the Raven dad told me about. She was troubled, and complicated, but she fought for what she believed in, whether it was her team or her tribe! Did you kill her too?

Yang’s question is poignant and underlines how all Raven has done is simply to hurt herself. By hurting the people she loves, she has been killing a part of herself.

This is also conveyed by her emblem missing from her possessions. According to the wiki, Raven’s emblem is this:

Raven's emblem is a winged eye with a clock inside of it. This emblem has not appeared on any of her possessions so far.

This is a reference to Raven and Qrow’s allusion to Hugin and Munin, Odin’s two ravens, who travel the world and bring him information. Raven and Qrow do the same for Ozpin and they are his eyes.

Qrow is the left eye:

Salem: The last eye is blinded... you disappoint me.

While Raven used to be the right. So, her emblem is probably the right version of Qrow’s own one. Still, Raven refuses that part of herself and this is why she is not wearing her emblem.

In short, Raven used to be a bird of a feather with Qrow, but she is not flocking together with him anymore. This is because a scary cat has come:

And Raven has sacrificed her bonds out of fear. Not only that, but she has weaponized them:

Yang: You turn your back on people, you run away when things get too hard, you put others in harm's way instead of yourself!!

Raven has been using her most loved people as assets, so that she can shield herself from danger. Maybe it is because of this that she symbolically uses Omen to open portals. This even if she can apparently do so without it, since she opens them even as a bird. However, using her sword is a way to distance herself from the true nature of her ability (bonds). It is a way to reduce her ties with people to simple things she can use.

That said, this is damaging Raven herself.

To be more specific, she is making herself weaker and weaker:

Yang: Oh, shut up!! You don't know the first thing about strength! (...) You might be powerful, but that doesn't make you strong.

Raven is powerful, but weak. This weakness is symbolically conveyed by her behaving in the opposite way her semblance would need to truly shine.

Raven’s power works thanks to bonds, so it can be assumed it would be at its strongest if its user cultivated them both in quality and in numbers. However, Raven has few bonds and she is cutting them off one by one:

Yang: You can bond to certain people. And when you do, you could create a portal that takes you straight to them. You've got one for Dad. One for me. And you've got one for Qrow.

We know that Raven is also bonded with Vernal. Still, Vernal dies at the end of volume 5. Of the other ones Yang mentions, Raven has pushed away both Qrow and Yang through her actions at Heaven.

This makes this scene interesting:

Did the portal Raven opened at Heaven go to Tai? Did she go there because she felt nostalgic and missed him? Or is he the only one (both practically and symbolically) she can still run to?

QROW: A SCARE-QROW SCARED OF CROWS

Qrow’s semblance is Misfortune and it is basically a Bad Luck Charm:

I am no one's blessing I'll just bring you harm I'm a cursed black cat I'm an albatross I'm a mirror broken Sad to say I'm your bad luck charm

Qrow causes bad luck around himself. Because of this, he sees himself as a curse.

However, this conflict Qrow has with his semblance is actually symbolic of a turmoil developed on multiple levels.

Let’s begin with this:

Raven: You're the one who left. The tribe raised us, and you turned your back on them.

Qrow: They were killers and thieves.

Raven: They were your family.

Qrow: You have a very skewed perception of that word.

Qrow was born in a tribe of bandits and was taught how to kill and steal. Finally he was sent to a hunter academy, so that he could learn how to kill his classmates in the near future.

Qrow’s semblance is nothing, but the manifestation of his self-hate, that was probably partly caused by the environment he was born in. In a sense, it is his symbolical response to his childhood.

Let’s highlight that this response is very different from Raven’s. This is shown by their opposite behaviours toward their tribe. Qrow leaves it, while Raven goes back to it.

This difference can also be conveyed by how both Raven and Qrow share a specific motif, but embody it in different ways.

Both twins are associated with bad luck. Both can turn into ravens/crows, which are birds linked to misfortune. Moreover, their weapons are called respectively Omen (Raven’s) and Harbinger (Qrow’s).

The meaning is clear. The twins were born and raised with the idea that they should be symbols of violence and bad luck for their enemies. It is just that Raven wants to be a bad omen because it makes her feel strong. Qrow does not want it, but thinks he is:

I'm a harbinger, I cannot lie, I will change the color of your life.

It is to try and free himself from this curse that Qrow started working for Ozpin. He literally becomes the Scarecrow of the story to try and exorcise the bad fortune he brings. He is trying to scare the crows away. He thinks that if he does so, he’ll become a full person.

This ties with the original story of his allusion. In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the Scarecrow wants a brain because he is told by an old crow he would be just like a real man, if only he had one. In short, the Scarecrow wants a brain to become a real man, so that he can scare crows better than he already does.

Qrow too wants to be a full person, but he believes he is not. He thinks he is cursed and as a reaction to this he has attached himself to Ozpin and to his cause:

Qrow: No one wanted me... I was cursed... I gave my life to you because you gave me a place in this world... I thought I was finally doing some good...

This is why he reacts so badly when he discovers that Ozpin (who is basically a father figure for Qrow) has hidden so many things from him. Not only that, but he feels that the impossibility of truly defeating Salem (of truly defeating evilness) makes his life meaningless.

The point is of course that this is not the case and that Qrow does not need to do anything specific to be a true person and to be loved:

Qrow: Every choice I've ever made has led me here, and I've dragged you along with me. Oz, myself, the others... We're responsible for the mess the world's in now. I shouldn't have come, shouldn't have let any of you come... What was I thinking?!

Ruby: We're all in this together, and we're all going to do the best we can. That's all anyone can do. And I know it's what you've always aimed for. We would've come whether or not you'd let us, so stop talking like we're your responsibility! We're not! But we could still use Qrow Branwen on our side.

Ruby’s confrontation with Qrow at the end of volume 6 is basically the opposite of Yang’s confrontation with Raven in the finale of volume 5.

Yang calls Raven out because she refuses her responsibilities. She pushes them on others and leaves her own daughter to fight a battle she ran away from.

Ruby calls Qrow out on taking too much responsibility on himself. The kids were not forced by him to come. Qrow should not be completely responsible for them, but should learn to fight by their side.

Later on, Qrow is basically told the same by Maria:

Maria: You weren't half bad yourself today, Qrow.

Qrow: I feel like they did all the heavy lifting.

Maria: But you were there to help when they asked for it, and you were there to catch them when they fell. Literally, if I recall.

This is important because Maria appears just after Ozpin (aka Qrow’s mentor and guide) disappears. She is the person Qrow aspired to be:

Qrow: You never used your name, never showed your face. Lots of us thought you were just layin' low. Eventually, we just came to accept that you were probably dead. But the stories about you, I based my weapon off of yours. I wanted to be as good as the Grimm Reaper.

At the same time, Maria too, like him, considers herself a failure:

Maria: Well, I'm nothing but a disappointment, so you're well on your way.

However, at the end of the volume both Maria and Qrow realize that they do not have to save the world by themselves or to be invincible heroes. They just need to be there for their loved ones and the new generations. In short, Maria mentors Qrow on how to be a proper mentor.

And it turns out that he just has to take better care of himself:

In short, Qrow became the Scarecrow to scare crows, but ironically all he needs to do is to overcome his own fear of one Qrow.

If he does not, his semblance is bound to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, as it is shown in his two fights against Tyrian (vol 4 and vol 7).

1) In volume 4 he manages to protect Ruby, but ends up injured and unable to help the kids for the rest of their journey. He goes from their protector to a wounded man they have to take care of.

Narratively, it happens because of this:

Ruby: This is a lot to take in, and it all sounds crazy, but... I'm willing to do whatever I can to help because I trust you. But why couldn't you trust me? Why couldn't you just travel with us, instead of this secrecy, and, and--

Qrow: Look, this has nothing to do with trust. I-- It's a long story, okay?

The whole fight between Tyrian and Qrow could have played out very differently if Qrow were better at communicating with his niece. He wanted her away from Tyrian and himself because of his semblance, but Ruby interpreted it as Qrow not trusting her.

2) In volume 7, the battle ends with Clover’s tragic death being framed on Qrow.

Why does it happen?

Clover: Sometimes the right decision is the hardest to make. I trust James with my life! I wanted to trust you.

Once again, the problem lies in a lack of trust.

Qrow and Clover genuinely like each other and have bonded. Still, they fail to trust each other in a key moment and make the worst possible choice.

This is true for both characters:

Clover: I enjoyed working with you, you know. Even with that endless cynicism of yours.

Qrow: I'm usually proven right.

Clover: We don't have to fight, friend.

Qrow: You don't know my friends. That's how it always goes.

Qrow: Why couldn't you just do the right thing instead of the thing you were told?

In a sense, the whole fight can be read as The Scorpion and the Frog. In the original fairy-tale, the point is that one can’t overcome their own nature. The scorpion will sting the frog even if it goes against its own survival. Here, it is the same for the characters. In order for things to go well, either Clover or Qrow should overcome their flaw, but they fail.

Clover is not able to let go of his loyalty for Ironwood, even if it is clear the orders he received are wrong.

Qrow goes back to his usual cynism and makes a pact with Tyrian:

Robyn: I’m sorry for what happened. It wasn’t your fault.

Qrow: It was, though. I made a deal with the darkness, and he paid the price. It was all happening so fast, but Clover wouldn’t let up. Could have worked together against Tyrian if Clover just...

Tyrian is the poisonous scorpion, while both Qrow and Clover are two frogs, who are hurt by him. Ironically, the frog’s mistake in the story is to trust the scorpion, while the mistake of our two frogs is that they did not trust each other.

Still, why is it so narratively? To be more specific, why is that so when it comes to Qrow’s character?

The answer is here:

Qrow: But the thing that really stings? For the first time in a while I thought, maybe, maybe I could be around somebody - anybody - without my semblance making it… complicated. And now, it just feels like a childish dream. Gone... like everybody else.

Clover is narratively this:

Blake: You have to understand that all of you are looking for simple answers to a very complicated problem.

He is a very simple answer to a very complicated problem that has its roots in Qrow’s interiority. Qrow’s flaw, what goes in the way of his relationships and happiness, is not that he is unlucky, but that he feels unlucky.

He feels worthless and thinks of himself as bad for others. This is why he keeps his distance and refrains himself from growing close to people.

He blames it on his semblance and this is why he makes an exception for Clover. It is because he sees in the other’s ability an easy fix to his struggle.

Still, he is proven wrong because in the moment of truth, they fail to communicate and everything goes to hell.

This is not to say that Qrow and Clover’s relationship was bad or that Clover deserved to die. In-universe their bond had beautiful aspects and could have grown stronger. Moreover, Clover could have developed and left his flaw behind.

Still, narratively Clover serves a specific purpose and him dying is a part of said purpose.

Clover brings a superficial harmony to a situation and a group dynamic, which is actually not harmonic at all:

Clover: What would you guys do without me?

The Ace Ops are a group of individuals repressing their own feelings and identities for the sake of an unspecified greater good. They see the world in black and white, not because they are stupid, but because they refuse complexity:

Robyn: Yeah, because you don’t care about the truth. You just want someone to be mad at. Easier than taking an honest look at what side you’re on.

Winter: Penny. The general is making hard choices so we don't have to.

This fits with them being a group based on Aesops aka short stories with a very well defined and often simplicistic message.

In short, Clover is the one that keeps his group together. Once he is gone, his group starts deteriorating. All because they refuse to aknowledge their feelings:

Ren: That’s why you lost against Team RWBY. You, you try to fight how you feel about each other, so you’ll never truly work as a team.

Once he is gone, Qrow is similarly forced to grieve and self-reflect. Luckily, he is not alone:

Robyn is the opposite of Qrow in terms of symbolism.

Qrow is associated with crows and bad luck, while Robyn is linked to robins, which bring good fortune.

She is also a symbol of unity and hope (her emblem is basically Katniss’s symbol in the Hunger Games, after all):

Tyrian: Robyn Hill. For such a little bird, you have quite the impact around here! Bringing hope and a smile wherever you go! I find it…upsetting.

Despite this, Robyn too has suffered isolation, just like Qrow:

Robyn: Believe it or not, I know a little of what that’s like. When people are worried you’re gonna sniff out their secrets, they tend to push you away. It makes a real connection… difficult.

Qrow: I-- never thought of it that way.

Robyn’s line is important for two reasons.

a) It shows Qrow that he is not the only one who has met difficulties in life because of his semblance. His case is not unique.

b) It links to the idea that trusting others is difficult and it is not something that comes without dedication and work.

As a matter of fact Robyn’s semblance is specifically symbolic of trust. It is the power to detect lies through touch, so if you are going to work with her, it means you must be ready to trust and to be trusted:

This also ties figuratively with the act of shaking one’s hand as if to make a pact (an act of trust). If Raven’s power is about asymmetrical bonds, then Robyn’s is about mutual ones.

Robyn highlights that this creates problems for her because it is not easy for people to trust. Some can’t be trusted, while others do not trust Robyn won’t cross their boundaries.

However, this also means that the relationships Robyn manages to forge are strong bonds, where everything or almost everything is out in the open. This is the exact opposite kind of environment than the one realized through Clover’s good luck semblance. It is a harmony more difficult to reach, but it is a more stable and genuine one.

It is these kinds of bonds Qrow should aim to create. In order to do so, he must accept his semblance and his past as parts of themselves. Still, he should not let them define him. Not only that, but he should learn to trust others and their strengths:

Qrow: Ruby, stop!

Ruby: I need you to trust me.

Only in this way, Qrow can truly grow. The secret is that it was never about scaring the crows away, but to learn how to live with them.

HUGIN THAT RUNS AWAY AND MUNIN THAT MAKES EVERYONE WORRIED

Raven and Qrow’s issues can be synthesized by this quote:

"Hugin and Munin fly each day over the spacious earth. I fear for Hugin, that he come not back, yet more anxious am I for Munin."

Raven never comes back, while Qrow has his loved ones fear for him because of his self-destructive tendencies.

In order to overcome these flaws, they must grow in opposite directions.

Raven must realize that her survivalism is actually self-destructive. It makes her survive, but it negates her the chance of living. She must become more selfless and trustworthy to make it up for the unfair bonds she created.

Qrow must accept that his self-destructiveness is actually selfish and damaging to his loved ones. He must start to trust others’ strengths, so that he can be brave enough to live together with them, instead of looking at them from afar.

#rwby #rwby meta #qrow branwen #raven branwen #robyn hill #clover ebi #tyrian callows #my meta #semblance of the soul

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chaoticspacefam · 3 years

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wonder if part of why the swtor jedi-sith conflict plays the way it does with “sith stans” and etc because the sith empire are functionally saturday morning cartoon villains - “murder and mayhem await!” compared to the more, i guess, believable evil of the republic/jedi following good ideals to bad conclusions and justifying war crimes

I'd certainly say it doesn't help things, you're right! I have...a lot of issues with the Jedi and their portrayal (especially in the Legends/SWTOR era), but I also recognise that a lot of that is very personal to me and that another fan might feel differently. Long, ranty post ahead so if that's not your deal, skip this one.

TL;DR: thinking critically about the behaviour of the Good Guys bad, I guess, since they're the good guys and you're obviously not allowed to use your own agency to decide something they do makes you deeply, viscerally uncomfortable. And God help you if you disagree with anything they do and cite personal experience behind your (very justified) avoidance of that rhetoric/teaching, because Bad Things Justified If Good People Do Them and how dare you have different personal experiences and responses. If that's what you do, you're doing fandom wrong /s Also, bad writing choices of the writers themselves that perpetuate toxic, harmful viewpoints and/or stereotypes don't mean anything when said viewpoints/stereotypes are the Bad Guys because...Bad Guys Aren’t Supposed To Be People With Rights, Thoughts and Feelings Too, They’re Just Evil, (cringe)

Disagreeing with someone’s opinions is fine, but if you’re going to deliberately expose yourself to content you don’t like and then attack the person that is making the content because they made it and it upset you when you went looking for it....you are, in fact, the one at fault babes. No one is holding you hostage, you can block tags or unfollow a person (especially me. I really don’t care honest to god, if my posts are not your jam just leave. please.) if you hate what they post so much and are unable to just scroll past things you don’t like to stay for things you do. I’ve done it and will continue to do so, and my fandom experience is happier for it. Also, people are human and sometimes we’re tired and we make mistakes like we miss a trigger tag, and you are within your right to come to the person and point that out, but you are not within your right to threaten them because they made a mistake. Then you’re just a dick.

But I still wouldn't be the one going around (passive) aggressively attacking other fans for disagreeing with my opinions and again, this is based on personal experience, but I've seen a lot more of that stuff from "pro-Jedi" people who seem to be conveniently okay with shit like mass-genocide and cultural erasure because "the Jedi are the good guys and the (OT) Sith are fascists!"

I don't interact with the subsect of fans that do think "the (OT) Empire did nothing wrong hurr durr" unironically (and for good reason, I don't agree with that viewpoint either and the fact that half the time the "defence" of these other fans is "well you're pro-fascist then!!" lmao) but there's a very big gap between the OT Empire which is rightfully a mirror of fascism and dictatorial governments and I do, in fact, raise my eyebrows in heavy criticism and disdain at the writers of the TOR-era deliberately choosing to "justify" the ultimate end being said fascist Empire by making the Sith species (and as always I preface this by saying I am in fact white & therefore know I have priveledge and can only "relate" on a much shallower level as POC fans, but there are places where I do find them more relatable than the TOR-era Jedi which reek of conservative, pearl-clutching Christianity (which I spent way too much of my life having forced upon me by the bible-bashing Evangelists(tm) in my family) to me and I just don't have the fucks to give to spend time fixing something that's honestly traumatising for me to be reminded of):

-heavily Indigenous/POC-coded

-"tribal" and not in a properly-researched and respectfully portrayed sense but in a very deliberate "these people are savage and need to be colonised and "sophisticated" by the More Acceptible (Human) Dark Jedi" even though they had their own society, belief systems, and even had technology - just not in the "socially acceptible, conventional sense" I guess

-perpetuating this by adding slavery and all of that can of worms into the mix too, just to drive home the "evil and bad" prototype ig. I'm not even gonna speak more on this part because it just makes me angry.

-Deliberately giving them more "alien" or inhuman characteristics, which while by itself is not necessarily a bad thing, put it together with all the other things?? Big. Fucking. Oof.

-Were literally exterminated and the survivors selectively bred for ONLY the "bad and evil" traits for not agreeing with the Jedi's beliefs. Their own practises and beliefs were automatically "evil" and "wrong" just because they didn't want to "convert" (sniff sniff, Christianity, is that you?)

A direct quote for those who can't be bothered to click and read the link:

For nearly two thousand years, superstition, loyalty and sympathy were bred out as the two groups interbred, and qualities such as cunning, ambition and affinity to the Force were favored, which shaped Sith society over the centuries.[3][21][22] In the Sith Empire, as time progressed pure-blooded Sith were steadily bred out,[6] resulting in only a few pure-blooded Sith left in the Sith Empire by the time of the Great Hyperspace War.[13] Long after, the true species in the Empire were believed to have gone extinct due to the interbreeding process.

And conversely the Jedi:

-Deny young children contact with their parents, siblings and families from the moment their Force sensitivity shows (hmmmm. )

-Continually and actively support the condemnation and Exile of "imperfect" Jedi, hell, it's even pointed out on Wookieepedia, that any Force sensitive, even those who are not aligned to either faction, but that train with or follow teachings that are not Jedi Approved (tm) is labelled as a "Dark Jedi" by the Jedi Order

Although "Dark Jedi" originally referred to a Jedi who had fallen to the dark side, it could also refer to uninitiated Force-sensitives who received no Jedi training but began their careers under another Dark Jedi. Others were simply dark-side users who did not follow the teachings of the Sith or other dark side organizations.

because "oh noooo you do not follow the way of the Truth and the Light you horrible person how dare you defy The One True Correct Teaching, that makes you the Devil Incarnate no matter what" UGH.

-Continuously push the idea (very heavily) that Emotions Are Bad, which just creates a bunch of emotionally-stunted powderkegs unable to recognise, confront and deal with said emotions (and as I've said, I would know, I was one and maybe still am in some ways lmao) , then blames said powderkeg for exploding because they were never taught how to handle the emotions in the first place.

(Fuck "there is no emotion, there is peace", that's not how people work and never will be lmao)

I don't really know what else to say about this to be honest, because even though I've only been on tumblr about a year now, I'm already tired of this constant "I'm right, you're wrong" finger-pointing between those people in the fandom.

Cause to some of these "pro-Jedi" people it's an unthinkable crime to dare to have a different opinion to them and just want to be left alone, I guess. I've literally been attacked for saying "I don't like the Jedi and find dealing with their dogma too traumatising based on personal experience and trauma from my childhood so I'm going to avoid it but you do you"

I've had American Christians (tm) clap back to that with the ever-wonderful "LMAO bitch you don't have religious trauma, you didn't grow up in the bible-belt, stop trying to be edgy, shut up and go to therapy"

(all of this is sarcasm, for those who need me to spell it out for you. I'm still traumatised by the shit I went through and have to constantly check myself and my own feelings because of the toxic "habits" those teachings tried to push onto me as a child and I have zero tolerance and patience for your (not you, ssalmon, but the royal "you" as it were) victim-blaming abuse apologism "gotchas")

because 1) clearly American Christianity and the bible-belt are the only insidious and harmful subsect of Christianity and it's not like the concept of Evangelism as a whole is inherently toxic, harmful, and traumatising to those subjected to it right 2) Obviously there's a Stated Right Way To Be Traumatised and anyone who falls outside of that (Non-Existent) handbook is "faking it for attention" 3) bold of them to assume that curating my own fandom (and life) experience, and refusing to engage with things that trigger me, isn't something that I literally fucking learned in therapy lmao

Also, I find it funny how these are the people going around attacking people like me, who are literally minding our own motherfucking business, but then claim to preach “love and tolerism” and all this other bullshit. Karen, sweetie, only one of us is going around telling people they deserve to be murdered/stabbed for disagreeing with thier opinion about a videogame and pointing out that “hey, that’s...very yikes maybe don’t do that, step back and calm down” and it ain’t me (true story, this happened a couple of months ago and I don’t wanna dredge the post up because it’s very upsetting to think about) People are allowed to have opinions, and they don’t have to agree with your opinion just because that’s what you think, and the second that you sink to sending people death threats because they don’t share your opinion, you are, in fact, the asshole in that conversation.

It was even funnier because the person in question followed me first, I initially thought they were pretty cool so I followed back, then they threw a massive temper-tantrum and threw a bunch of very upsetting and triggering shit at me without my consent because I didn’t agree with them (I’d even put my opinions in tags on MY blog in an attempt to be courteous and not hijack their post with negativity, in hindsight perhaps I should have made my own post in the first place and I do acknowledge that BUT if that’s all they’d said I would have apologised and moved on, quite gladly, there was no need for them to explode the way they did at me for...making a mistake because I’m a stranger on the internet who didn’t know them & wasn’t a mind-reader and I happened to miss a trigger tag that I didn’t think of at the time lmao)

This post is getting awful long and rambly so I'm going to shut up now, but that's my take on it I guess, I hope that's what you were getting at and if it's not I apologise, I've been taking a huge step back and actively just avoiding any and all major posts related to this discourse as of a few months ago because it just infuriates and upsets me too much, it’s not worth the detriment to my mental health, I’m just here to make friends who are also hyperfixated on SWTOR and have fun vibing and talking about our characters, not get into one-sided morality debates with pearl-clutchers. 🤷

#swtor critical #fandom critical #jedi critical #tw: stabbing mention #tw: death threats #tw: genocide mention #elven rants #elven screams into the void #<< vent-y/ranty tags. block these + any specific faction/character criticals if you don't want to see posts like this #i think i've got all the triggers but if i've missed something just approach me like a normal human being and ask me to tag for it #and i will lmao that's literally in my blog's blurb but Some People can't read ig #🤷#i'd even tag some of this as #purity culture bullshit #because imo that's what it boils down to in essence #''love and forgiveness the only morally good pure way to live hee hee anyone who does not do this exactly is Bad and Evil''#i am begging you to find other braincells purity police. and then actually learn to USE THEM. please

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truthdogg · 7 years

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No lives matter, except the (white) ones with guns

The right to kill each other is not freedom.

The right to kill each other is, however, a privilege and a right, one held almost exclusively by white men here for hundreds of years. This country, or at least nearly half of it, is determined to never give that up.

As shown clearly in the NRA’s own ads, our obsession with guns stems from our obsession with keeping authority and control in the hands of the same people, and a fear that this may someday change. It keeps the power over lives in the hand of lone individuals, as long as those same individuals also keep control of the law and the courts.

White people have worked very hard since the Civil War to keep a legal way for us (or our agents) to choose to kill others or to force their submission. Reconstruction ended with a violent terror-fueled retaking of southern statehouses, still honored by statue and flag today, the legacy of which wanes on occasion but always comes back hard.

Today, the root of our gun problem is still the racist desire to maintain the long-held white privilege of absolute power over others’ life & death. Whether by changing definitions of terrorism or mental illness, by stand your ground laws, by only training police to be executioners and never to disarm, or by the deliberate creation of desperation and poverty, we have engineered laws and their interpretations to ensure that this remains consistent.

The Supreme Court ruling that the 2nd Amendment had nothing to do with militias was a novel invention, but it was seen as necessary after our country’s Civil Rights movement and a sudden potential shift in power. Losing their access to our most efficient murder weapons was, at that time, a terrifying proposition. It still is. A whole slew of laws passed by states during Obama’s presidency enabled killers to avoid jail as long as their victims died, if only they say they feared for their life.

When Philando Castile informed police he had a concealed weapons permit, he was shot and killed, and the NRA was notably silent about his concealed-carry rights. When innocent children were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary, the far-right claimed it was either a hoax or irrelevant. When Dylan Roof murdered black churchgoers in cold blood, the police took the nice kid for a burger on the way to the police station.

We do not take white killers seriously as a nation. When we do, we fight to ensure they keep the ability to kill again, or to kill even more. We do this out of a paranoia that white people will lose power and become the oppressed.

The NRA insists upon our need for police officers to “do their job” and execute civilians without trial, yet they still maintain we need our personal guns to defend against tyrants. That seems contradictory on its face, until we recognize that “tyranny” in this case simply means what Dana Loesch says in their ad: it means “them,” taking control.

Nevada law says that terrorism includes “any act that involves the use or attempted use of sabotage, coercion or violence which is intended to cause great bodily harm or death to the general population.” However, local police immediately stated they didn’t consider the Las Vegas shooting terrorism, even though it matches that description, because the concept is so thoroughly ingrained in our institutions and even in our media: white men already hold power, and killing by or for white power is not terrorism because it cannot change the political power structure. As a result, if it is not acceptable, it is at least tolerated and expected.

When justifying murders of black Americans, we hear about “black-on-black” crime, the familiar racist cry that because one person may have killed another, somewhere, the life of anyone of their race ceases to have value, and their lives cannot matter. That argument somehow never applies to white shooters who kill dozens, because, well, that’s the price of maintaining our white privilege. Some people will have to die for it, and we as a society have accepted that innocent people must pay that cost.

We white people need our guns, our executions by cop, our castle doctrines, and our forced labor. We have had it for hundreds of years, and we are terrified as a group that we may have to give it up. We will malign the dead and their families, we will argue that a whole group of beautiful little children never even died, we will even boo our athletes and avoid professional football games to maintain it. We will dismiss the lives of concert-goers as the “price of freedom,” because to paranoid Americans with internalized racism they actually are. Without our complicated structure of defenses and interpretations, white male Americans could one day lose the easy ability to kill without consequence.

And that would be entirely unprecedented.

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politics-jpeg · 4 years

Text

the rohingya crisis: ethnic cleansing or genocide?

artwork: human rights (????) medium: digital collage art and words: e1 section: a51

During the discussion of genocide, I remembered a paper that I wrote about the Rohingya crisis happening in Myanmar. In this blog, I will be posting my writing and will be editing it to offer my insights on the crisis. I will also be posting my references from the paper to give way for more in-depth study if the reader chooses to do so.

Genocide has many definitions but I have found one that I think encapsulates what genocide is. Quoting Koffi Annan in 2001, “A genocide begins with the killing of one [woman or] man—not for what [she or] he has done, but because of who [she or] he is.” Genocide is the intent to wipe out a religious congregation, a race, a portion of a population with malicious intent. More or less, this is done in order to further an ideological endeavour, belief, or agenda. Dubbed as the worst crime against humanity and the crime of all crimes, what’s saddening about it is that there is a meticulous process done by several individuals with the intent to wipe out a portion of the population.

According to the United Nations, there are five characteristics of genocide and they are as follows: killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to the members of group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, and forcibly transferring children of group to another group. Most importantly, genocide is intentionally targeted to the group of people and a part of a group of people.

In 2017, hundreds of thousands Rohingya Muslims fled to Bangladesh in order to find refuge. The Rohingya is also known as one of the most discriminated groups if not the most. According to BBC in 2020, the Rohingya who are more than a million was denied of citizenship in Myanmar where Buddhism is predominant. According to a video by Vox in 2017, since the 1970’s, the Rohingya have been fleeing to Bangladesh in order to avoid violent military forces. The discrimination in Rohingya started in in 1962, when military forces were strong in Myanmar. During these times, a military junta was formed and like any totalitarian leadership, they had to create a common enemy in order to instil fierce nationalism. In addition to this, Myanmar was struggling against the aftermaths of the British occupation. Myanmar sided with the Japanese in order to fully cleanse the country of British influences while the Rohingya sided with the British. In 1978, Operation Dragon King commenced, driving out Rohingya Muslims out of Myanmar with the use of rape and violence. In 1982, the Citizenship act was passed, recognising 135 ethnic groups as citizens of Myanmar, leaving out Rohingya with over 1 million people stateless. In 1991, Operation Clean and Beautiful Nation took place with 250,000 Rohingya Muslims fleeing to nearby countries like Thailand, Bangladesh, and Malaysia. In 2012, they displaced thousands of Rohingya again, and in 2016, Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army did a small scale attack that left 12 Burmese police dead. The 2016 ARSA attack sparked the current Rohingya crisis with the brutal exodus of 400,000 Rohingya Muslims. The attack was considered as the fastest growing humanitarian crisis in recent years and land mines in the Bangladesh border were planted in order to prevent the Rohingya from ever coming back. With all of these at hand, I personally consider that the brutal murders against the stateless Rohingya is genocide.

Looking at the official characteristic of genocide from United Nations, the decades long attacks were enough to be considered as genocide. They have been driving out the Rohingya with brutality with the intent to wipe them out of Myanmar. I’m not saying that the ARSA attack was okay but the counter attack of killing 6700 Rohingya including more than 700 children, the rapes of young girls and women, the tortures, forced displacement, and other human rights violations are unchanged—even though Myanmar claimed that there have been cleansing operations in September 5, 2017. However, there have been evidences that violence still continue after that according to BBC. Myanmar lacked accountability and failed to fully investigate allegations, hence, should be charged with genocide.

De facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi defends that there has been misinformation regarding the matter, criticising the impatient international actors (Simons and Beech, 2019). She says that genocidal intent cannot be the only hypothesis. In addition to this, she also said that the Rohingya Muslims and the ARSA attack was from the insurgence of terrorism—pointing out that the leader of ARSA , Atta Ullah was born in Pakistan and was raised in Saudi Arabia. However, a spokesman said that ARSA had no links to jihadist groups but was only composed of Rohingya people angered by the violence brought to them by the government. (BBC, 2017). What’s more that, the leader says that 50% of the Muslims are still in Myanmar but failed to mention what happened to the other 50%.

It is ironic how Aung San Suu Kyi, once the icon for democracy, is now the perpetrator for Muslim violence in Myanmar. The military forces who once oppressed her rights are the ones that she’s siding with now. Is it true that democracy could only be afforded by the people who is in favour of the persons in power? What Aung San Suu Kyi committed was genocide. People are individuals and they are not to be treated as people in a group. Re-quoting Koffi Annan in 2001, “A genocide begins with the killing of one [woman or] man—not for what [she or] he has done, but because of who [she or] he is.”

REFERENCES:

BBC News. 2020. Myanmar Rohingya: What you need to know about the crisis. Retrieved from: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41566561 BBC News. 2017. Myanmar: What sparked the latest violence in Rakhine? Retrieved from: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41082689

Simons, M. & Beech, H. 2019. Aung San Suu Kyi Defends Myanmar Against Rohingya Genocide Accusations. The New York Times. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/world/asia/aung-san-suu-kyi-rohingya-myanmar-genocide-hague.html

United Nations. n.d. United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect. Retrieved from: https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml

Vox. 2017. The “ethnic cleansing” of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims, explained. Retrieved from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04axDDRVy_o

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benrleeusa · 7 years

Text

[Ilya Somin] The case for keeping DACA

A woman holds up a sign in support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, during an August immigration reform rally at the White House. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

President Donald Trump has apparently decided to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA), an Obama administration initiative that suspended deportation of over 800,000 undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children. DACA allows such migrants (often referred to as “Dreamers,” after the DREAM Act, which failed to pass Congress) to stay in the US long as they arrived in the US when they 15 years old or younger, were 30 or younger when the program began in 2012, have not been convicted of any crimes as of the time they apply for the program, and have either graduated from a US high school, are currently enrolled in school, or have served in the armed forces.

If news reports are correct, Trump has decided to end DACA, subject to a six month delay. That would be a terrible decision. The program has strong moral and policy justifications. The legal arguments against DACA are more substantial, but do not justify ending it either.

I. Why Ending DACA is Harmful and Unjust.

Subjecting DACA recipients to deportation would inflict great harm for no good reason. Even the deportation of adult immigrants to Third World poverty and oppression causes grave harm and injustice. But the cruelty and suffering is likely to be even greater in the case of most DACA recipients. Many have never really known life in their country of origin. As GOP Speaker of the House Paul Ryan puts it, “[t]hese are kids who know no other country, who were brought here by their parents and don’t know another home.” A recent study found that the average age of DACA participants at the time they arrived in the US was only 6.5 years old. The likely effect of deporting one of them to Mexico or Haiti is only modestly less harsh than deporting an otherwise comparable native-born American there. Some 25% of DACA recipients have US-citizen children. For obvious reasons, those children are likely to suffer considerable harm if their parents are subject to deportation.

The standard argument for deporting undocumented immigrants is that they deserve that fate because they violated the law. In my view, the vast majority of undocumented migrants were justified in acting illegally because of the dire circumstances they are fleeing, and the deeply unjust nature of the law in question. But I can understand the argument that deliberate violations of the law should never be tolerated, regardless of circumstance. That theory, however, has no bearing on DACA recipients. In nearly all cases, they either did not come to the US by their own choice, were not legally responsible for their actions at the time (because of their status as minors), or both. You don’t have be a philosopher or a legal theorist to realize that a seven year old has little choice but to go wherever her parents or guardians take her.

In addition to the great harm inflicted on DACA participants themselves, ending the program would also damage the US economy. Most DACA recipients are productive members of society. Getting rid of them would impose substantial costs on employers and consumers. Not surprisingly, protection from deportation has enabled program participants to earn higher incomes, establish more businesses, and otherwise make more contributions to the economy than they likely would have without it (see also here).

Ending DACA does not necessarily mean that all participants in the program will be deported. Many might not be, depending on how lower-level federal officials exercise their discretion. But even the threat of deportation is likely to upend the lives of many recipients, forcing them underground and making it difficult for them to plan for the long run. In addition, DACA recipients are more vulnerable to targeting by a hostile administration than most other undocumented immigrants, because they have turned over extensive personal information to the government as part of the process of applying for the program.

II. Legal Objections to DACA.

In part because the moral and policy case for DACA is so strong, many opponents of the program tend to focus on legal considerations. DACA does not in fact change any law or legalize any previously banned activity without congressional approval. It merely suspends enforcement of a law against a particular category of migrants. Nonetheless, critics claim that it was illegal for the executive to adopt DACA without congressional authorization. I addressed this issue in some detail back when DACA was first announced in 2012. Here is an excerpt:

Some critics… attack the president’s decision… on the grounds that he lacks legal authority to choose not to enforce the law in this case.

This criticism runs afoul of the reality that the federal government already chooses not to enforce its laws against the vast majority of those who violate them. Current federal criminal law is so expansive that the majority of Americans are probably federal criminals. That includes whole categories of people who get away with violating federal law because the president and the Justice Department believe that going after them isn’t worth the effort, and possibly morally dubious. For example, the feds almost never go after the hundreds of thousands of college students who are guilty of using illegal drugs in their dorms. The last three presidents of the United States all have reason to be grateful for this restraint.

[John] Yoo contends that there is a difference between using “prosecutorial discretion” to “choose priorities and prosecute cases that are the most important” and “refusing to enforce laws because of disagreements over policy.” I don’t think the distinction holds water. Policy considerations are inevitably among the criteria by which presidents and prosecutors “choose priorities” and decide which cases are “the most important.” One reason why the federal government has not launched a crackdown on illegal drug use in college dorms is precisely because they think it would be bad policy, and probably unjust to boot….

Finally, Yoo also argues that prosecutorial discretion does not allow the president to refuse to enforce an “entire law,” as opposed to merely doing so in specific cases. But Obama has not in fact refused to enforce the entire relevant law requiring deportation of illegal immigrants. He has simply chosen to do so with respect to people who fit certain specified criteria that the vast majority of illegal immigrants do not meet.

Most of the points I made in this 2016 article defending the legality of Obama’s later DAPA policy (which was rescinded by by Trump in June) also apply with even greater force to DACA, since the latter is a much more limited program. Wide-ranging presidential enforcement discretion is unavoidable in a system where there is so much federal law and so many violators that the executive can only target a small fraction of them. In the 2016 article, I explain why presidents have the power to exercise their discretion systematically as well as on a “case-by-case” basis. I also note there that the policy of giving DACA and DAPA recipients work permits actually does have congressional authorization, based on a 1986 law that specifically permits employment of aliens who are “authorized… to be employed… by the attorney general.”

I do find it deeply troubling that so much depends on the discretion of the executive – discretion that is all too easily abused. But that problem cannot be addressed by ending DACA. Even if the policy ends, the executive will still have to make decisions about which lawbreakers he intends to target and which not, and he will still be able to go after only a small fraction of them.

The only way to really put an end to the danger of massive executive discretion is to cut back the scope of federal law, preferably limiting it to cases where there is a broad consensus that the activity in question should be illegal and that the federal government is the right entity to ban it. Then the president will have sufficient resources to target a high percentage of violators, and would be likely to suffer severe political backlash if he refuses to do so.

Even if you find the legal objections to DACA more compelling than I do, the right solution is not to end the program, but to get the congressional authorization for it that critics claim is essential. A good many congressional Republicans, including Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, support legislation that would do just that. So too do nearly all Democrats. Whether or not it is legally required, legislative authorization would have the great virtue of ending the state of affairs under which the fate of DACA recipients depends on the whim of whoever occupies the White House.

If Trump’s objection to DACA is based on legal concerns, he could easily fix the problem by announcing that he supports congressional efforts to protect DACA recipients, thereby likely removing enough GOP opposition to enable Congress to pass a legislative DACA quickly. But if Trump both cancels executive DACA and continues to oppose legislation to protect Dreamers, he cannot use legal arguments as a justification for his cruel policy.

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nancyedimick · 7 years

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The case for keeping DACA

A woman holds up a sign in support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, during an August immigration reform rally at the White House. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

I. Why Ending DACA is Harmful and Unjust.

II. Legal Objections to DACA.

Some critics… attack the president’s decision… on the grounds that he lacks legal authority to choose not to enforce the law in this case.

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/09/04/the-case-for-daca/

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wolfandpravato · 7 years

Text

The case for keeping DACA

A woman holds up a sign in support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, during an August immigration reform rally at the White House. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

I. Why Ending DACA is Harmful and Unjust.

II. Legal Objections to DACA.

Some critics… attack the president’s decision… on the grounds that he lacks legal authority to choose not to enforce the law in this case.

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/09/04/the-case-for-daca/

#Law #Lawyer

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