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#because I thought my lack of experiences with racism meant I didn’t have the claim to my identity as a biracial Latino
thelosthargreeves · 2 years
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White TUA fans see a character of color and be like it’s high time to remove this character’s agency (Allison), diminish their person as a whole and reduce them to a set of aggressive stereotypes (Diego), infantilize them (Ben), compare them to other people of the same race solely on the merit of said race (Fei), and claim they’re a bad influence and need to be controlled when white characters have done the same if not worse (Lila)
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genshinconfessions · 2 years
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PT II of II
It's honestly a bit weird, a bit annoying, and more than a bit problematic to see so many people fixated on representation in Genshin in the form of skin color. I'm not saying that isn't valid, but it's verging on the point of obsessive which diminishes much of the validity. I am Indian, so the representation or lack thereof is something that actually affects me and that I too have opinions on (gasp a minority who is actually directly affected having opinions and managing not to be racist in expressing them). However, since I AM Indian, this means I have been dealing with racism, colorism, and a lack of representation my whole life! It is not something I have become magically aware of and concerned with because a game made by Chinese developers sorry ahem cough I meant made by China the Country logically of course has chosen to limit their skin tone range in a region influenced in part by my culture. It is, in fact, actually something that has existed in every form of media and in every country I have gone to and in most things that I have experienced every day! I have been painfully aware my whole life of how there is no one who looks like me in most things I read, watch, or play. When there are people who look like me they never actually REPRESENT me, and often make me feel upset that North America constantly views and portrays me as a foreign imbecile regardless of having lived here my whole life. But by your point of view these caricatures "represent" me because at least we are the same skin color, right? At least North America is giving me Baljeet! Beyond that, I have been painfully aware that the things that ARE a part of my culture become white washed and discredited and that any representation is wiped away and things that I was made fun of for slowly become appropriated and claimed to be invented by "North Americans". This is not representation, in fact it is overt racism and is something that primarily North America seems to suffer from. For me, I would have loved for any part of my culture to be represented at all and anywhere at all. That's why, as problematic as Avatar is, I still love that show and loved it as a child. It represented parts of my culture that other people didn't understand and thought were weird, but in a mainstream way that exposed people to new ideas and concepts. Maybe Genshin doesn't have the representation that looks good on paper to the closed minded "North Americans" who do not express any willingness or interest to experience/learn about a culture beyond their own and instead fixate on skin color due to sheltered self-righteousness and adamant refusal to admit their own underlying racism, but Genshin is doing a lot by culturally embracing and respectfully creating a region influenced by beautiful cultures and with lore and names and concepts directly tied to things I can recognize and appreciate! Is it annoying that characters named Kusanali or Dori are pale as turnips? Yeah, a bit. But what's new? Lack of representation for my skin color has existed all my life, but at least the characters are representing my culture at all in a respectful way that will reach millions of people and expose them to something new. Maybe instead of diverting all blame onto "China" and Chinese culture (which how tf would any of you know anything about that unless you're Chinese???), you guys should focus on the issues in your own countries and try to notice the lack of representation and often racist undertones present in much of our media. Otherwise you're sort of outing yourselves. You can't have an issue with one country as soon as one game you play doesn't cater to your exact desires and demands, when in reality the majority of the world doesn't cater to the representation you're wanting and never has. If that's how quickly it takes for you to be so severely bothered by a country entirely unrelated to you and by a game no one is forcing you to play, especially if you aren't the target audience as you so claim, then I wonder how quickly it would take for you to turn on the minorities you presently want represented if even just one of them did something you disagree with? Maybe instead of fixating on skin color you guys should crack open a book and learn about other cultures and figure out how to recognize representation in all its forms, not just the one you can see without engaging in any deeper thought.
<3 keith
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carlyraejcpsen · 3 years
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alright, i’ve tried to keep quiet because i truly believe in karma and wanted this rp to close through the admin’s own actions and not give them any opportunities to blame it on me instead. it also felt like beating a dead horse, because i was sure they’d close the rp after losing a huge proportion of their active members and the majority of their diversity. however, after seeing multiple people sharing their experiences today, they are still posting promo posts and starting their event. so yeah, here’s my experience with @thevillagerp​​
NOTE: i no longer have screenshots from my conversations with the admins, as i blocked them when i left the rp for the sake of my own mental health, but i did save the text in my drafts, so the messages below are copy pasted. i have not edited them in any way. They also deleted my original anonymous messages off of their blog.
TRIGGER WARNINGS: racism, very vague allusions to homophobia and transphobia
so i was a member of this roleplay for around two months. during my time there, it was startlingly obvious that white fcs were preferred and prioritised, both from the fact that they got more plots and interactions in general and from the fact that admins never promoted diversity on the main. even now, they repeatedly say they “would still love to receive some more male and non-binary apps” while ignoring that they currently have a ratio of 8 fcs of colour to 24 white fcs. their diversity rules at the time were that 1/3 of a mun’s characters had to be played by an fcoc. so people could easily just play one or two white characters.
a while ago, i sent an anonymous message to the main asking if they had considered perhaps changing this rule to be 2/3 characters instead of 1/3, since there were so few muses of colour in the roleplay (as i said before, they’ve since deleted this from their blog so i cannot provide a screenshot). they responded that they had been thinking of upping the character limit to four instead of three, with a rule that 2/4 must be played by an fcoc. i gave them the benefit of the doubt and the time to enact this change, but nothing happened.
so a few weeks later, i sent them this message on anonymous:
I was wondering if you had thought any more about the diversity rules here? I know you said before that you were considering increasing the character limit, but I noticed that hasn’t happened and I wanted to know if that was a change we’re going to see or if you would consider changing the rules in another way? I’m really disheartened by the lack of diversity in the roleplay
at the time there were 18 characters of colour out of a total of over 60. they responded (again, i’m sorry i don’t have the actual wording since they’ve deleted the messages) that they had thought about it and decided against upping the character limit, but instead would be having a weekly “poc acceptance day,” where they would only be accepting apps with fcs of colour. they also said they were doing this “now that the waitlist was mostly cleared,” which meant that the rp was mostly at capacity anyway, so they needed to look more at how to encourage their existing members to promote diversity, since there weren’t spaces open for new people to bring them in.
i responded with another anon expressing my disappointment and pointing out that they had done more to prevent having too many celebrity characters than too few muses of colour, as at the time they had a ban on celebrity muses. i wouldn’t usually suggest a ban on certain fcs, but as it was something they had done for celebrity characters, then i supposed it was a reasonable option.
they didn’t even respond to this message and instead posted on the main asking me to come off anon to discuss it. so i did, and i sent them the following dm:
i didn’t want to come off anon because i honestly feel really ostracised in this group and didn’t want to make it worse, but i don’t want to drop this issue and you aren’t comfortable addressing it publicly so here we are i guess. like i said in my previous message, i really don’t see how a “poc acceptance day” is going to make anywhere near enough of a difference. people will just wait for the opportunity to play their white characters. there are only 18 characters of colour in a roleplay with over 60 characters. that’s less than a third, which is obviously concerning. what’s even more concerning for me is that these characters are more often than not overlooked. i am often ghosted when plotting, or people don’t even reach out at all when i like plotting calls or intro posts. and then i have to watch characters like leo almost exclusively interact with white women (i’m sure that’s not the only example, but it is the first that comes to mind as he is one of the more active characters).
so this issue goes so much deeper than there just not being adequate representation in the rp. i really tried to help, i suggested making it a rule that 2/3 characters need to be poc in my original ask and you mentioned upping the character limit in response. i was worried that my concerns were being brushed aside, but i waited a while to give you the benefit of the doubt and the space to discuss the issue. so you can understand why it was really upsetting today to learn that the one thing you suggested was dropped and instead replaced with something that is barely scratching the surface of the problem. and i don’t know if it was your intention, but by saying that you were waiting for the waitlist to clear, it comes across as not wanting to receive any backlash from people who would want to join with only white characters. and even if people did want to join with faceclaims of colour, they can’t because the waitlist is cleared. like i suggested, you could change the rules so that 2 out of 3 characters must be people of colour. or, as was your proposed idea, up the character limit to four. you could also put a temporary ban on white faceclaims until the ratio evens out. as i mentioned, it’s really distressing that this was something you were willing to do for celebrity characters, but not to aid diversity.
i also just want to make it clear that these have been the only anons i’ve sent, i know you’ve been getting other ones, but those weren’t from me!!
( for context, they were receiving anons from someone else claiming that they felt left out in the rp ).
i had hoped that coming off anon would show them that this was a very real issue which was affecting their members, as well as giving them a space to discuss it privately instead of on the main. they responded with:
Hi Em, thank you for coming forward. We really, really appreciate it and we understand it’s not an easy thing to do. We also appreciate you flying the flag for diversity so strongly. We can always strive to be better, we are on the same page with you here.
Let us just explain our decision making. Firstly, just to address the waitlist, that was certainly not at all our intention when we brought it up. It was a logistical decision with 5+ applicants having already waited a week for acceptance and aware of their position on a waitlist.
When we decided against upping the character limit (and therefore the 2/4 POC character rule), we thought a POC acceptance day could be a good alternative course of action. In our eyes, this was something that would probably bring more POC characters to the group than the 2/4 rule because we knew there weren’t going to be many muns taking up an additional fourth character. This was a rule we’ve seen other groups enjoy success from so we wanted to try it out here. Plus, we think a day that explicitly highlights diversity every week would bring the message to the forefront of everyone’s minds. As we said, we’re going to monitor this over the next couple of weeks to see if it brings any improvement because we’d really like to have it as an ongoing rule.
The non-POC ban is actually a measure we’ve spoken about too and we are considering putting one in place should this fail. Thank you for raising your concerns, know that we’ve taken them very seriously and we hope that you’ll trust our judgement in trying this rule out first to see where it leads.
first of all, i don’t think i even have to mention the wording of “flying the flag for diversity.” but the real crux of the issue here is that they supposedly wanted me to come off anon to discuss the issue, but instead just explained their idea further and didn’t take anything i said on board. they didn’t even say a single word about how i told them i felt ostracised and regularly got ignored. i knew from speaking to other muns in the rp who played muses of colour (and just from looking at the dash) that they felt the same way too, but of course was only speaking from my own experience.
i thought long and hard about how to respond to this, as i was so disheartened by their unwillingness to listen to their members and the fact that they didn’t care that i felt left out. it felt like they had asked me to come off anon just so they knew who was messaging them and therefore put a target on my back, so honestly the thought of being on the dash or talking to the admins made me incredibly anxious. before i had a chance, however, they responded again with:
Hi hun, we’ve continued discussing this issue over the last couple of days and we wanted to let you know that we’ve decided to put in place a non-POC ban instead. Thank you again for holding a mirror up to the group. We do hope that this will recorrect the balance.
so i waited to see how things would play out. they posted about this new ban here and pinned the post to the top of the main:
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[ IMAGE ID: a screenshot from thevillagehq of an admin update, which reads: in the interest of keeping the village a diverse space, we are currently only accepting applications for POCs. please note that any apps or reserves submitted to us for faceclaims that are not POCs will be deleted. we will lift this rule once we see fit.
thank you for your understanding and your efforts in making this group a brighter, more inclusive and diverse place for all. /END ID ]
this rule remained in place for around two weeks, during which time they made almost no effort to promote it. the above post was pinned to the main page, but that was the only mention of the ban anywhere on their page, they didn’t update the rules page or even put a note on the application page about it. during this two week period, the admins posted 10 promo posts, none of which suggested fcs or even mentioned the ban or diversity at all. the ban was then lifted suddenly when the pinned post was removed and the admins just went back to accepting apps with white fcs. the ratio had only evened out in those two weeks (from 18 out of 65 to 24/50) because of people going inactive or leaving, and there was nothing put into place to continue to promote diversity after the lift of the ban. in the three days after the ban was lifted, the admins posted over 10 promo posts, the same amount they had posted during the entirety of the ban. it was clear that they had no intention of actually making changes in their rp and had only done so because i refused to drop the issue.
again, i thought a lot about what i wanted to message them. i knew at this point that they didn’t want to make any real changes, but i still felt like i had to make it clear to them how disappointing their actions were. once again, i was messaged before i even had a chance, this time for bubbling.
as you can see in the above correspondence, i had told the admins point blank that i felt left out and ignored in the rp because of the characters i played (aubrey plaza, mj rodriguez and keiynan lonsdale fcs. all of my characters were queer and used either she/they or they/them pronouns). as a general rule, the only people who wanted to write with me and have interesting plots with me were people who played other muses of colour. the rp had a rule that you must reply to 3+ muns on every character, which i had been doing. i had only been back from my hiatus for a few days at this point and had responded to 6 different open starters the day prior. their message to me read:
Hi hun. There’s something we wanted to address to you directly. It’s been expressed to us by multiple members during these last few weeks that they have felt excluded by your character within the group, especially when it comes to the friend bubble that has formed between Mars, Bowie, Luvena, Asher and others. 
While we encourage the development of friendships and trust that this isn’t intentional, we have a zero tolerance for bubble roleplaying at The Village. We are aware that our three mun activity rules have been met by all parties involved, however, bubbling is usually a little more nuanced than that and it seems it has unfortunately begun to create a bit of a divide within the group. 
We have already issued individual warnings to a few people within the bubble, however with multiple members still expressing their concerns to us, we decided it would be better to address the group as a whole. We hope that by pointing this out to you, you will try and branch out to your fellow members a little more from now on - and try and be a little more inclusive when it comes to everyone else in the group. 
We take such matters very seriously as admins, and while we hope it won’t have to come to this, there will be consequential steps taken should we not see any changes in your interactions in the weeks to come.
as you can imagine, i was incredibly upset to receive this message after already telling them i didn’t get plots from many of their members and they had done nothing. even people who i had previously messaged continued to only write with the same few white characters. i don’t deny that we definitely had a friendship group between our characters, but there were multiple people in that roleplay, including the admins, who only cared about ship plots or plots with the same few muns. me and other people who received the same message had all previously told the admins that people aren’t plotting with us and gotten ignored, so receiving this message made it clear that they neither cared about us nor wanted us in their rp. and so i responded as below:
yeah i literally told you i felt left out because there are multiple people only writing with white characters and you never addressed it, so this message is honestly insulting. i have reached out to almost every new member, responded to multiple open starters and have tried to plot with as many people as possible. like i told you, i am often left on read or people don’t even message me at all. if people do message me, i am usually expected to put in all of the effort and if people aren’t interested in actually developing plots with me then i am obviously not going to force my characters on them. all of my characters are queer, non binary people of colour and the harsh truth of this roleplay is that people don’t care about them. i even wrote out a whole list of 20 detailed suggested connections in an attempt to get more plots and nothing came from that either. i’ve even gotten anonymous hate saying that offering to explain my characters’ pronouns was “patronising,” which i didn’t feel like i could approach you about because, when i told you about how i’m feeling excluded, you didn’t care.
so if i only have actual plots with the people who actually care about my characters, i make no apologies. i also don’t even have threads with half of the characters you named, asher being the only one, and have literally only just come off hiatus. so please explain how i am bubbling, because this really just feels targeted at this point.
you’ve made it endlessly clear that this rp isn’t a safe space for people who want to play diverse characters. the main was practically silent while you had a ban on white faceclaims, which you never actively promoted, and then you dropped that suddenly without putting anything else in place. you also deleted my initial anonymous messages asking about diversity as if you were trying to hide that there was ever an issue. you turned anonymous messages off, so that no one can safely criticise you. because i did that off anon and ever since it has felt like there is a massive target on my back. my characters have been “accidentally” on the activity checks multiple times despite me being on hiatus (people get a notification that they were tagged even if you remove their name from the list btw). plus when i asked for an extension on my hiatus, you said that you would allow it “just this once” which now makes me feel like i can’t come to you if i’m busy. right now, for example, i am in the middle of moving house, but i’m also stressed about trying to stay active because you have made yourselves completely unapproachable.
the ratio only evened out slightly because members left. then suddenly after the ban you’re posting multiple promo posts a day??? you couldn’t get more obvious. i came to you about diversity in good faith, hoping that it was something you were unaware of, but you have made it abundantly clear that you actively do not want to promote diversity in your roleplay, we are just here to be witnesses to your ship. there are multiple members who are actually bubbling who have been brought to your attention, but nothing has been done. leo continues to only write with the same three white and white passing characters. charlotte pretty much only appears to write with leo and post a vague “message me for plots” post that wasn’t even tagged. both of you only put effort into your ship threads with each other and the occasional text threads. even with something like group events: while i’ve been here, there’s been a pride event that neither of your characters were even in new york for (an event where i was the only one reaching out and posting multiple starters, by the way); there was no event last month, and this month all you’re talking about is this housewarming party.
i’m really disheartened that it’s come to this, but i can’t be here anymore. please post unfollows for all my characters. you’ve said multiple times that we should trust you as admins, but this message shows again that i simply can’t do that. from the disregard of trigger warnings, to the way you treated being held accountable for the lack of diversity, to how you respond to people asking for hiatuses, this isn’t a safe space. even if i stayed, the target you have placed on me is making it insufferable to just write my characters in peace.
the other muns who received the same bubbling message (copy pasted btw, we all got the same one word for word) all responded with their own concerns and criticisms in responses of a similar length to mine. none of us received a reply, our unfollows were just posted the next day without any further responses from the admins. a few of the other members who had written and plotted with us chose to leave as well, which the admins wrote off as us just dragging them with us as opposed to them being able to make their own decisions and being aware of the situation (which was incredibly obvious. no promotion of a white fc ban, suddenly being active on the main once they try to stealthily drop the ban, then the majority of their muses of colour leaving???)
i haven’t paid the rp much attention since i left, as i mentioned above i blocked the main and the majority of the members just for my own mental health. but from a quick scroll through today i can see that the only change in diversity rules is that now instead of your third character having to be a poc, it is now your second. however, you still only have to have 1 character out of 3 have a fc of colour. so very little has been done, but of course i’m not surprised in the slightist.
these admins don’t want diversity in their roleplay. if you play any character who isn’t a rich, white, cishet neurotypical, please avoid it at all costs. it’s not in any way a safe environment.
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valley-of-the-lost · 3 years
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I don't know if you watched BPA, but.. I have a question, that I don't know if you can answer this, but it's been nagging at me (this is a multi-part ask, this will be a quick rundown): A blog that used to be interested in Barbie claimed that BPA has some racist undertones; this is because, as they claimed, due to the antagonist (who has, as they put it, brown skin) tries to take over the kingdom of a white princess/queen. 1/?- Barbie Multiverse Anon
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Okay, so, a quick explanation. This ask has been sitting in my inbox for a few days, and I sincerely apologize to Multiverse Anon for making them wait this long for me to weigh in on this. When I received this ask I was neck-deep in part of an art challenge that wore me out and I had not watched BPA (which I assumed was Barbie Princess Adventure) at the time, and I felt that this was the type of ask that I needed to chew on for a couple days and talk to some people before I was certain of my thoughts on it.
Now, I have done some cursory research, watched Barbie Princess Adventure myself, and bounced it off some of my friends for their take as well. Thus I will attempt to answer this to the best of my ability.
I do agree with the unknown blogger in question that Prince Johan is a brown-skinned character, and that the plot has racist implications due to the combination of this, him being the antagonist, and the fact that his kingdom lost a war to Amelia's prior to the plot to drive his motivation hence why Amelia is taking over the rule of both her own and his kingdom. However, I disagree with them that this is an ongoing theme or that there's a pattern of racist undertones in previous Barbie movies. At least from my own knowledge. 
(under a read more because I don’t want to clog people’s dashes, this is not a simple topic to unpack + the movie did some weird things I wanted to explain too)
Before I really delve into the meat of why I take this stance, I want to quickly discuss why I had to even assert that I agreed that Johan is a brown-skinned character as its own point on the off-chance someone else encounters the same initial weird impression I did. You can skip this part if you want, I'll put a triple asterisk where this ends (***).
Prior to watching BPA myself, I did some cursory research on the Barbie Movies wiki, prompted by this ask. I put together that Johan was probably the antagonist that was being referred to, but when I was on his page, his wiki picture was just this.
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This was all I had to go off of at this point, because he didn't have a screenshot gallery for me to cross-reference him throughout different points in the movie. So the conclusion I drew at the time was "he just looks like a tan white guy". This impression was reinforced by his light eyes and recycled Ken face model. I cross-referenced this with some friends, and we came to the conclusion that at best he looks racially ambiguous, with no reason to think he was a character of color unless there was other indication about his race in the movie itself.
And then I watched the movie. And changed my mind when I saw what he looked like in these scenes.
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Johan looks noticeably darker than he did in his single wiki picture, especially when next to other more obviously white characters like Barbie and Amelia. His skin tone is closer to Alphonso whom I would call a brown character pretty confidently in the same movie (I wanted to minimize comparisons across movies to eliminate the possible different variables that would come with it).
While this might not be as noticeable to other people casually watching the movie, I found this a bit jarring myself because I was focusing on his skin tone in particular due to the subject of the ask and my initial impression from the wiki picture when he was arguably at his lightest in the whole movie, as well as when he was introduced he was at his darkest because it was set at night. Also the way the animation team decided to shade him to convey that its nighttime confused me because he looked a lot darker than I thought someone of what I assumed his skin tone would look. And then the next scene with him and Barbie further confused me, because he suddenly got this reddish undertone that really highlighted their difference in skin color.
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(Barbie’s hands are on the left and Johan’s are on the right for sake of direct comparison)
Finally, in his last scenes in the movie, Johan's skin tone is most like that of his wiki picture's. Darker than Barbie's when they stand in the same shot but light enough that he could've passed as a tan white guy. What cemented my confusion is that he still looks like this in the throne room, where he was before when dancing with Barbie so it should reasonably have the same lighting and bring out that reddish undertone, but no he still looks like that. So my final conclusion on him was that since he looks like a brown-skinned character in around 2/3s of his scenes and there's a 2D painting of him in the bg when Barbie and Amelia are kidnapped, that he is indeed a brown-skinned character and the animation department probably fucked up their lighting which messed with how uniform his skin tone looked across scenes. ***
Now that I've explained my process of confusion and then final agreement that Johan is indeed brown-skinned, let's discuss how this compounds with other elements to create a rather unfortunate picture. I'm afraid its a bit worse than Anon described.
First off, the added context of the history between Amelia's kingdom of Floravia and his kingdom of Johanistan. Prior to the movie proper, these two countries fought in a war and Johanistan eventually surrendered to Floravia. The two countries signed a treaty that said that after her coronation, Amelia would rule both Floravia and Johanistan.
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There is a severe lack of critical details about the war itself, such as what caused it in the first place, which really works to the film’s disadvantage, since the absence of clarity does little to clear up the questionable implications of what is known about the relationship between Floravia and Johanistan.
Amelia’s kingdom is the one that took over Johan’s initially, since they won the war and Johanistan would be ruled by Floravia’s queen, with the implication being that she’d depose Johan’s family, the original ruling family. While the lack of details makes it so it can’t quite be said that Floravia is colonizing Johanistan, it also means that it can’t be said that Floravia is not colonizing Johanistan. What is known about the war is very broadly reminiscent of tactics white people have used to colonize other countries, such as using a war to depose the original royal family for the colonizer’s own gain (the US colonizing Hawaii by staging a coup against their ruling family because the white plantation owners got mad) and putting the other country in a disadvantageous position with a treaty (Opium Wars). This would probably just be viewed as normal Kingdom vs. Kingdom politics if... well Johan wasn’t a character of color.
Combined with viewing this movie through the lens of real-life racial biases (which people are predisposed to do because we're inherently based in reality), the likely conclusion drawn is that this white ruler (Amelia) is effectively ousting a character of color (Johan) and his family out of power and force-assimilating his country, and there's simply not enough clarity about previous events before the movie takes place to dispel it sufficiently.
This also poisons the plot proper because Johan's motivation is to take advantage of the law that the rule of both kingdoms falls to him if Amelia doesn't show up to coronation and regain rule of his own kingdom and Floravia as a nice plus. The intention was probably to show him as greedy for wanting lone rule of Floravia and Johanistan, taken together, it honestly comes across as the movie villianizing a character of color because he wants to regain sovereignty of his own kingdom from a white ruler. Its completely understandable that Amelia wouldn't want to lose her own kingdom especially coming off of war, but also her kingdom is also the one ousting out the previous royal family of Johanistan without giving any good reason why they can't compromise.
The effect would be somewhat mitigated if another character of color had a similarly prominent role as Johan on the side of Barbie, but there's really not. The closest I'd argue would be Alphonso, but he doesn't have equal plot relevance. This does, in my opinion, make Barbie Princess Adventure's plot give off racist vibes like that unknown blogger said. But I do not agree with them that there's a "pattern" of racist undertones in other Barbie movies.
Due to the lack of details of what exactly they meant by a "pattern" of racist undertones, I am assuming they mean a consistent pattern of racism across the movies, for example the movies consistently dipping into anti-Asian sentiments with their villains, or their plots inherently having racist vibes woven into them like I just talked about in BPA.
Despite the Barbie movies occasionally dipping into offensive territory, in my personal experience I have not observed a pattern of racist undertones or consistent racism targeting a specific group. I acknowledge that I could fully be wrong and a lot of things could have slipped past my notice, especially since I have not seen all the movies, but from the ones I have seen I have not observed a pattern with regards to this. However, I will point out the offensive/iffy things in the movies that I know of, with varying degrees of detail depending on how much I can remember. This is by no means a full compendium of all the problematic stuff Barbie films have touched on but these are the ones I am aware of at present.
Barbie of Swan Lake - Antisemitism. There was a TikTok on this somewhere that discussed this more in detail that I can't find but will link if I do, but what I do remember was Rothbart was given an extremely large nose which is reminiscent of the "Jewish nose" ethnic stereotype. Also there was something about his name and Tchaikovsky himself being antisemitic and those views being reflected in his ballet. I don't remember all the details I'm sorry and google wasn't giving me much.
Barbie in the Princess and the Pauper - Antisemitism. Preminger hits a couple of antisemitic stereotypes in the movie, such as having a noticeably larger, hooked nose compared to the other male characters which is reminiscent of the ethnic stereotype of the "Jewish nose" and being greedy and corrupt (literally mining every singe piece of gold out of the mines) which is a stereotype of Jewish people. His name is also of Jewish origin which by itself wouldn’t be a necessarily suspicious thing but combined with those other tropes it does add up.
Barbie Diaries - Tia, a black woman and also the only one with curly hair in the cast, making an iffy comment about "getting the tangles out of her hair". POC with different hair textures have gotten a lot of racist shit for their hair so even though this is a small oneoff comment seeing Tia talk about her hair like this in a negative manner rubbed some of my friends with curly hair wrong.
Barbie in a Mermaid Tale 2 - Polynesian racism. Another friend of mine who is Hawaiian brought this up in Mermaid Tale 2, when Merliah and co decided to have a luau (which is a traditional Hawaiian party or feast usually accompanied by entertainment) in Australia. My friend found it a bit iffy they were doing this when most everyone is white, but what they found worse was when poi was being served in the luau. Poi is a traditional Polynesian dish, but in the movie they claimed it was an Australian and Hawaiian dish, which its not, there’s no Australia in its origin. And then there was a "gag" where the people eating the poi were gagging on it, so essentially this movie was making a joke out of another culture's aesthetics and food.
Barbie Princess Adventure - Reread the above text.
Maybe my sample size isn’t big enough but I’m not seeing a pattern or a trend here, which in my opinion would be a larger cause for concern because for these movies their issues are largely contained to their specific movie, and a pattern would be indication of a wider problem. Maybe you see a pattern I don’t, that would be completely valid.
Now, do I think this means you can’t enjoy Barbie Princess Adventure? No, I’d be a bit of a hypocrite if I said that because I still enjoy some of the Barbie movies I listed above that I just said also have problematic elements (Swan Lake and Princess and the Pauper specifically). But I do think it is good to at the very least be aware of it, hear it out, keep it in mind. At the same time I understand why people would be turned off by this topic because they’re here to have fun riding the serotonin of childhood nostalgia and not delve into discourse.
But I hope I answered your question to your satisfaction Multiverse Anon! I’m going to go take a nap now I’m tired 😭.
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nerdsideofthemedia · 5 years
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Faunus and the White Fang: The Portrayal of Racism
RWBY has been adored by the progressive community due to the portrayal of 4 strong young women, at least 2 of whom are LGBTQ+. Not to mention the inclusion of other LGBTQ+ minor characters.
Despite this, the show is far from flawless, and it’s time to address what is probably its biggest problem: the portrayal of racism. I suspect this may end up being my most controversial post yet, but, like someone said, “It’s both possible, and even necessary, to simultaneously enjoy media while also being critical of its more problematic or pernicious aspects”.
Before I start I think it’s important to clarify that unlike in conversations about being a woman and LGBTQ+, in this one, I come from a place of no experience, since I am a white European. I do not intend to speak over POC, nor do I claim that my knowledge on the subject is flawless (far from it). Hopefully, this is only the start of a conversation and not the entirety of it.
To be clear: I am not a part of RWBY hatedom. While it’s flawed, I like it, I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t. I am criticizing this aspect because racism exists in real life, so how the subject is handled is important and I don’t want the edgelords controlling this entire conversation because their stance on racism in real life is: it doesn’t exist.
Lazy worldbuilding
Like Bright and Crash, RWBY, for the most part, frames individuals as the main culprits of racism instead of the systems which favor certain groups over others. We see this with Cardin, Cordovin, V1 Weiss, Roman and the village people (in the Adam short). Yes, those racist individuals exist, sometimes like caricatures however, they are far from being the only or even the most relevant type of prejudice.
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By putting the blame on very specific characters, racism is presented as something easily identifiable and fixable when it’s neither of those things for a significant portion of the population. People often ignore that though laws have changed, biases didn’t magically disappear, segregated neighborhoods didn’t desegregate themselves and the wealth accumulated before wasn’t redistributed. The racist policies of the past created the now and will affect the future unless we try to fix the system.
Keep in mind that the Faunus Rights Revolution happened after the Great War, so… less than 80 years ago. Considering this timeline, it’s just unlikely the Faunus would be equal anywhere, let alone in 2 kingdoms (Vacuo and Vale) and the only thing we see in Mistral is the possibility of discriminating with the ramen shop owner.
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The mere fact this sign exists shows discrimination is possible but that shouldn’t be the only thing shown.
Atlas is the exception. In “Tipping Point”, we can hear a conversation about the Faunus, which mentions economic disparity and lack of opportunity, but it quickly fades into the background.
In terms of race issues, Remnant is wildly unexplored, even the renowned for its racism, Mistral. Maybe the writers just thought digging into politic could make for a boring story or maybe they didn’t want to risk alienating the portion of the audience that listens to edgelords. In either case, it makes no sense to have racism as a major theme.
Justifying racism
“Early men were scared to death of the Faunus, and honestly, it’s not too hard to sympathize with that. Seeing something that looks like you and acts like you walk out of the forest and reveal a pair of fangs, can be a little… upsetting.”
Qrow, World of Remnant about Faunus
This does sound a bit like justifying racism and trying to present as understandable. This is an idea that I see a lot. In a review of a book that had a new species and racism as a theme, one of the complaints was that there was no justification given for the treatment like welfare and gangs. Those aren’t causes of racism – they’re just excuses.  If anything, they have a lot more to do with stereotypes and wealth disparity caused by racism.  
RWBY does make this mistake with Blake’s speech in True Colors, which is reminiscent of when people hold all Muslims accountable for an attack done by one, judging them all for that person’s actions, even though we’d never do that for our own race.
“We’re just as capable of hate and violence as the humans, but I don’t think any of us would jump at the chance to point that out. So why are we letting Adam do it for us? By doing nothing and staying silent, we let others speak and act in our place. And if we’re not proud of the choices they make, then we have no one to blame but ourselves.”
Ghira does the same in the Adam character short, claiming Adam’s violence is the reason why people attack them. If you judge an entire race based on the actions of a few – that’s on you.
Um, actually Antifa is the problem
While the White Fang is not the only group of people fighting for Faunus rights (in the first episode, we learn they interrupted a peaceful protest), they are definitely the ones who are given the spotlight and it’s very unfortunate how they’re portrayed. With the exception of Ilia (and arguably Sienna), they are shown to be so radical that they are not only OK with destroying cities, but also mass murder. They are terrorists and don’t even deserve a face.
In contrast, the racists both deal with their shortcomings fast (Weiss and Cordovin), they all are worthy of sympathy and redemption (even Cardin and the ramen shop owner). I think the writers were going for “racists are people too”, which is a troublesome stance to take when you frame the ones fighting racism as flat out evil.
I imagine that Atlas is going to be shown to be more unforgivably racist and the Faunus will be more sympathetic, but… even so, it kind of feels like trying to make a case for “both sides”. Yikes!
Menagerie
I’m not entirely sure Menagerie was meant to be a paradise. It looks like it, Sun expresses loving it, but Blake quickly claims it’s overcrowded. I’ll give it that it seems a lot less developed than the other kingdoms judging by its constructions, but that’s about it. I think that if they were not going for a positive perspective on it, we should have been made more aware of Menagerie’s drawbacks.
To be clear, it’s wrong to force someone to live somewhere they don’t want to live, but I think it’s a bit problematic to present it as a paradise when in the real world, white supremacists are increasing and their way of speaking is by defending a white ethnostate, claiming homogenized societies are better.
Due to the lack of good characterization of the rest of Remnant, it makes it harder to believe Faunus really went to Menagerie due to being too jaded to be somewhere else because of racism.
Adam’s scar
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I have written about Adam before and just so we’re clear, I stand by my post – I’m OK with him being there to be Blake’s cruel obsessive ex-boyfriend who wants to harm her and that he basically represents the last obstacle to close Blake and Yang’s arcs of running away and facing abandonment issues, respectively.
This been said, considering the story, the scar was a huge mistake and I have no idea why someone thought it was a good idea. We’re not supposed to feel sorry for him, it doesn’t make us empathize with him – he’s clearly beyond redemption when it’s revealed and it doesn’t tie to his main motivation, his obsession for Blake, which is the cause of him being in the story. The scar would only make sense if he was an anti-villain, someone with a good cause, but evil methods (Black Panther’s Killmonger). That has never been his story though. He’s always put Blake above his cause and ultimately, he meets his end because of his obsession with her, not because she decides to confront him about his methods. Not to mention that if the scar was tied to his motivation, we should have seen it a lot earlier, not 2 minutes before he died.
Giving him a scar that reveals a cruel treatment of Faunus by humans for no other reason than to show racism is going to have a spotlight in the next volume is incredibly cheap and an awful idea, especially when it basically means nothing for Adam himself and doesn’t humanize him at all – he’s literally trying to kill 2 main characters at that point.
“Remnant can’t be racist, because…”
I also want to counter a few bad arguments against the idea there can’t be any systemic racism in Remnant. The examples usually given are Leo being the headmaster of Haven Academy and Neon representing Atlas in the Vytal Festival.
Leo
Thanks to Raven, we learned Ozpin chose the headmasters in other academies, therefore it’s possible to infer Leo was Ozpin’s attempt at fixing Mistral’s racism.
Neon
Yes, she studies in Atlas, but the headmaster is Ironwood, chosen by Ozpin and probably is also fighting against racism as far as the academy goes.
“They wouldn’t allow a Faunus to represent their kingdom”.
The equivalent of “I can’t be racist, I have a black friend”. Allowing a Faunus to go helps with the “we’re not racists, we even have a Faunus representing us”.
Other than Ironwood, I see no one else who could even have a say in that decision.
“She wouldn’t accept to represent a racist kingdom”
This either reveals an incredibly dishonest take or an almost child-like naivety. I am sorry to burst your bubble, but often people do go against their own interests provided the salesmen know how to sell it (there are Muslims who voted for Trump, women who fought against women’s voting rights, etc.). We can have prejudices against groups we’re part of.
Many will gladly go against their groups’ interests, provided they have something to gain (more than a few people spring to mind).
In this case, her decision doesn’t even hurt Faunus as far as we know – it just advances her fame.
“The townspeople weren’t racist since they were wearing masks and had weapons and we never see what’s inside of the truck”
I cannot believe I have to dignify this with a response… First, the inside of the truck is irrelevant. We had no reason to believe it was anything bad and one certainly can’t start shooting someone else just because they find them “suspicious”. Murders have happened because of racist jackasses who wanted to play hero by attacking a black “suspicious” person. Second, it’s Remnant, a place so full of monsters, teenagers are allowed to have weapons. They are clearly needed to go from one town to another. Sure, they could have dropped their weapons, but that still doesn’t change they weren’t attacking, not even in self-defense. Third, Ghira was still in charge of the White Fang and we know that during this time, the methods of the group were mostly peaceful, even if they were already wearing masks.
“They allowed an army of Faunus to go to Mistral”
OK, this is by far the most difficult one to justify, but not because of race – it’s just the authorities should have handled it all by themselves and I highly doubt they would allow civilians to fight against a terrorist attack. As for the racism point, the Faunus clearly warned the authorities, so I think it’s very unlikely they were bad guys and their weapons were awfully rudimentary. It’s not a great explanation, but I don’t think it’s more of a hit on verisimilitude than letting civilians fight.
Conclusion
I think the problems in the portrayal of race is due to a lack of understanding of racism, insufficient worldbuilding which should have been done before beginning to write RWBY and, probably, trying to avoid alienating any groups in the audience, which is not likely when the subject is racism and should not be the goal. This resulted in a mess where it feels like there is a need to frame racism as wrong, yet understandable (WoR), easy to fix, and too worried about holding the audience to task, hence sticking to cartoonish racism. While all of that is already pretty bad, it’s impossible to deny that it isn’t made worse by the rise of white supremacist groups.
I wish the writers will be more careful during the Atlas arc, but I fear we might be entering a white savior’s narrative as Weiss will probably be the focus of it. I tend to give credit to RWBY for putting the minority character at the center of their struggle, but ultimately Blake was there to fight her own and I suspect they will do the same with Weiss – she will fight her father for the rights of the Faunus (at least partially) and she will be the one who ultimately fixes racism…yeah, we might be heading to a white savior narrative.
I am hoping for the best while preparing for the worst. Still, no matter how well the next arc is handled, it cannot fix the past volumes retroactively.
One last note, I think the election of Trump should be more than enough to reveal that racism is alive and well, but if you want to understand systemic racism and the portrayal of racism in media, here are a few links:
7 Ways We Know Systemic Racism Is Real;
Adam Ruins Everything (it’s a video);
NCSC Implicit Bias;
ContraPoints – America: Still Racist (also a video);
Bright: the Apotheosis of Lazy Worldbuilding (video);
Renegade Cut - Green Book - A Symphony of Lies (video).
More RWBY posts:
Filmmaking and Bumbleby
Bumblebee was Always the Plan
Bumblebee was Always the Plan part 2
BB & Renora
Weird Post on Weiss’s Clothes
Foils: Adam and Yang (this one is in wordpress; it was my first one and I didn’t have Tumblr then)
Let’s talk about Adam Taurus (I didn’t post this one on Tumblr because the title and tags could lead Adam fans thinking this was about “his wasted potential” when really it defends the decision of killing him off and explains why it happened)
As usual, the original.
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feitclub · 5 years
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6 - 22 - 2009
in honor of my son’s tenth birthday, here’s the blog entry I wrote on June 22, 2009 after returning from the hospital and collapsing.
If there's one thing movies and television shows have taught me, the birth of a child is the greatest day of a person's life. Sadly, it seems Hollywood is a habitual liar because I felt that the twenty-four hours I spent in a hospital waiting for my son to be born was one of the worst days of my life. Thankfully it all ended well. Mako shook me awake around 2:45AM on Sunday morning, clutching herself and saying "We need to go to the hospital." It would later turn out that she had been in pain for nearly two hours prior to that but she stuck it out and waited to see if it would pass. It never did, so we all threw on our clothes and drove to the hospital I was understandably excited, if a little drowsy. When we arrived I was quite surprised at the lack of initiative from the skeleton crew working the off-hours. Technically speaking, this hospital is "closed" on Sunday but they maintain a side entrance and a small reception desk during these periods. Mako called them before we left so when we arrived, they knew we were coming. That doesn't mean they did anything though. I distinctly remember one man walk past us, acknowledge our presence by simply saying "Ah, Feit-san. Go to the fifth floor." without breaking his stride. You would think a pregnant woman bent over in pain would warrant a wheelchair or some measure of physical assistance, but not here. The fifth floor was a little busier than the ground floor, probably because there's always something going on in the maternity ward. Newborns arrive when they arrive and both they and their mothers require 24-hour care. Still, despite the buzzing of nurses around us most of the lights were off on the floor, so we spent our initial wait in the dark. Eventually Mako got a bed in the "labor room" and we were told that despite the pain, Mako was only dilated three centimeters and she needed to be at ten centimeters before any serious attempt to give birth could be made. When we asked how long that might take, they said "a while." I must try to set the scene here by describing the labor room. There is only one room and all expectant mothers have to share it, apparently. I don't know how many beds were in the room but there was little more than a wall and a curtain to separate Mako's bed from the others. Mako was also located right next to the toilet and near the examination chair, so we were in a fairly high traffic section of a very small room. It was here that we had to wait...and wait...and wait... As noon approached and after repeated claims of "it'll be a bit longer" it was evident that while Mako needed to lie in bed and wait, we didn't all necessarily have to sit next to her until the baby arrived. Mako's mother stayed and encouraged me to go with my father-in-law back to the house and clean up. We were all exhausted, having woken up in the middle of night only to sit and wait for nine hours in the corner of the labor room, so the idea of a shower sounded pretty good. Mako's dad also suggested we have some lunch, which I thought might help me cope with all the stress but it didn't change much. That's how nervous I was: not even eating made me feel better. We went back to the house and I washed up. My father-in-law told me to try and take a nap which was virtually impossible. Despite all the waiting with no end in sight, I was still worried that the baby would arrive at any moment. I laid down and maybe nodded off for forty minutes or so, but I awoke sharply and scared that I had missed the birth. I hadn't, of course, but I wouldn't feel calm until I was back at the hospital and next to Mako. Hours and hours went by, and I spent all of them by Mako's side in the corner of this horrible, horrible room. I'm not going to point any fingers here, because I certainly don't have the intestinal fortitude to endure even a tenth of what a pregnant woman goes though, but everything in this labor room carried a horrible stench. The human body generates a lot of foul smelling byproducts and this room was where they all get discharged. The delivery room (when we finally got there) was even worse, but the labor room's odor and total lack of privacy was miserable. Adding insult to injury was that my only seat was a tiny stool with no back and nothing to lean against. Between Mako's bed, her I.V. and the table where we laid out her belongings, there was barely any space for any visitors to sit by the bed. Eventually I went out again with her father for another meal, but I again spent the entire time thinking only of her. It obviously can't compare to the physical pain a pregnant woman experiences, but to see my wife in such torturous agony all day while she waits and waits was really painful for me. However, the idea of not being with her felt even worse because we had decided together to try and have a baby. Wouldn't leaving her to have the baby without me be a betrayal of our mutual agreement? Speaking of which, one of the worst things about this shared labor room was overhearing all of the other patients. In the next bed over was a woman who had checked in some time before us. At first she was just sleeping but as the evening approached, she went into the delivery room which was within an audible distance. She shrieked and screamed and we eventually heard the baby's first cries. A little while later, a man showed up and was surprised when he found out the baby was already born. This was obviously the father and I never saw him visit her once that day. Where the fuck was this guy that he couldn't attend his own child's birth or even comfort his wife as she struggled? His failure as a father/husband reminded me why I needed to sit next to Mako and just ignore my back pain and exhaustion. Yes, I left twice to eat meals, but I never left her alone and on both occasions I came back within an hour. At no point was Mako without a member of her family on hand. As the sun went down, it occurred to me that Mako had just spent the entirety of the Summer Solstice indoors, waiting for this baby. After about seventeen hours, things started to look like the baby was coming. We were still in the labor room but as her dilation increased, Mako was encouraged to try pushing to speed up the process. While I had spent most of the day just sitting with Mako and occasionally massaging her, it was during these initial pushes that I actually had something important to do. Mako was standing up and hugging me, holding onto me for leverage and squeezing with all her might as she tried to push. It was crazy intense and while it would prove futile (and it hurt like hell), it was the undisputed highlight of Sunday because I felt like I mattered. This is as good a time as any to mention how little attention the hospital staff paid attention to me, which I found deeply insulting. Maybe it's just the culture of Japan to leave the husband out of the birth process, but as I spent my entire Sunday next to my wife trying to console her and assist in the delivery our child, you would think that at one point someone would just start talking to me about something, anything, to acknowledge my constant presence. Instead, I was spoken about but almost never spoken to. The bad news is, I'm pretty sure it was that old-fashioned Japanese racism at work. For those unfamiliar with Japanese racism, I should explain that it's not actually hateful as much as it's clueless and stupid. I'm sure none of the nurses or doctors felt anything was wrong with me, they just never thought to treat me like a human being. Instead, I was treated like a gaijin. They would ask my wife "where is your husband from?" and "does your husband speak Japanese?" instead of just asking me directly. When they needed our signatures on waivers, they would explain everything to her (while I listened) and then look at me and start stammering, mumbling to themselves "oh, how do I explain this since you cannot read?" Under the circumstances I let it all slide but inside I was pretty pissed. But I digress...around ten o'clock we finally entered the delivery room. Mako gave it her all but after spending her entire day in pain on a bed without eating (she had no appetite at all), she found herself unable to push the baby out. They put her through a variety of poses, which means they were trying their best but it felt like they didn't really know what to do. Eventually they said there was a "bump" (こぶ in Japanese) and the baby wasn't moving any closer to the exit. Just after one AM, Mako couldn't push anymore and asked them for a C-section. True story: in Japan they call it an "imperial cut" (帝王切開). They spent almost an hour prepping Mako for surgery and then took her away to the O.R. I was left in the dark (literally) to sit and wait to find out what was going to happen to my family. I was understandably upset by this turn of events. Was there nowhere else I could go? I knew the surgery was routine and carried relatively little risk but that couldn't stop me from worrying about what might happen on the operating table. Let's not forget that it was past two AM and I had been awake for nearly twenty-four straight hours, so I was already a little out of my mind. Being afraid that my wife or my son might not return from the O.R. was terror I didn't need. My son was the first to appear, shortly before three AM. I wanted to be excited and revel in the moment of seeing my first child in the flesh, but all I could think about was Mako who was still absent. I asked the nurse and all she could say was "they're closing her up." While that was meant as a reassurance, I couldn't put her out of mind even as I looked down at my very healthy brand-new baby boy. As you can guess, she eventually turned up, as did her parents who must have been up waiting for my messages. Mako was on a stretcher and couldn't sit up, but she was conscious and able to ask me if I saw the baby. I told I did and that made her smile. For all the hell the two of us had gone through (her more than me, of course), having a baby after nine months of anticipation was a wonderful feeling. I suppose if we were going to go with the surgery in the end we could have saved Mako a great many hours of discomfort by asking sooner, but we had hoped for a natural birth. Ah well, at least now my son can totally kill MacBeth: Tell thee, Feit was from his mother's womb Untimely ripp'd.
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thepapermixtape · 5 years
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Waiting for Tom: A Weird and Disturbing Close-ish Encounter with Scientology
By: Jenna Welsh
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Ironically, I did not enter the “Psychiatry: Industry of Death” museum to learn about the harm that the psychiatric industry does to humanity at large, even though that is all I was left with upon leaving. You see, the sensationalized exhibits detailing the abuses of psychiatrists on the world were created by the Citizens Commission of Human Rights (or CCHR), which is owned by the Church of Scientology. Essentially, this nondescript building on Sunset Boulevard holds not only movie-quality set design and sound mixing, but also is the closest that the public can come to the elusive religion of stars such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta (which allegedly believes in aliens, ex-communicates former members, and has all the trappings of a modern day cult). But what I thought would be an eccentric brush with a religious group that has long fascinated me quickly turned into an experience that left me feeling, for lack of a better term, fucking bummed out.
As a disclaimer: I did not speak with anyone inside the museum about Scientology; this article is simply about a museum connected very closely to Scientology. If any Scientologists would like to contact and educate me about their religion, or perhaps even challenge me about my assertions I invite them to do so; I’m all about having an informed viewpoint and really want to understand both Scientology and its opposition to psychiatry.
The Church of Scientology established the Citizen’s Commission of Human Rights (CCHR) in 1969 as part of their “religious code”. It has long been a mystery to me why Scientology has always been so hostile to psychiatry in particular; it seems like a very specific application of a more general principle of preserving human rights. According to their website, “...the Scientology objection to psychiatry does not stem from any desire to deny the insane treatment. Rather, the Church objects to the mistreatment of the insane, which is psychiatry’s historical hallmark.”
As a lifelong consumer of celebrity culture I distinctly remember Cruise’s infamous attack on Brooke Shields, who came out in 2005 about her struggle with and treatment via antidepressants for postpartum depression. At the time, Cruise alleged that it was “irresponsible” for Shields to claim that antidepressants had cured Shields at all; he said “...when someone says [medication] has helped them, it is to cope, it didn’t cure anything. There is no science. There is nothing that can cure them whatsoever.” Needless to say, I understood how deeply many Scientologists felt about psychiatry, but again that wasn’t really my objective in visiting the museum. Honestly, I thought it was a Scientology trap, and I would not be able to leave without joining the SeaOrg and signing a Million Year Contract.
In any case, I walked into the CCHR Headquarters (where the museum is located) on a Tuesday afternoon with an open mind and did not immediately notice any red flags. The CCHR logo looked legitimate, while the banner for the museum looked cheesy but not enough to be invalidating. In the corner of the room was what looked like a conference room which featured the CCHR logo screen printed on the glass door, like you see in prestigious law firms. My point is, this all looked very impressive and official, not completely ridiculous like I thought it would.
I was greeted by a very kind woman who had me sign in, relinquish my backpack (and phone, as no pictures are allowed), and explain what brought me to the museum. I know that Scientology is not an incredibly transparent organization so I did not tell her I was with any sort of journalistic organization, and instead said I was a UCLA student who saw the museum from the street. I did not ask her if she was a member of Scientology because I didn’t want her to identify me as someone who was going to challenge her; in hindsight this would have been a cool opportunity to learn about her personal motivation for working at the museum (i.e. her religion?), but what can I say? I’m not great at this undercover thing.  
The woman, who I will call Katie, took me to the front entrance of the museum (which I will admit was pretty dramatic, it looked like the entrance to a Disneyland ride) and explained to me that the CCHR was not against psychiatry as a profession or psychiatric treatments but simply wanted to present the reality of psychiatric abuse. I appreciated the disclaimer but later found it to be untrue; this is not an organization that supports psychiatry of any kind.
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After so much fanfare and anticipation, it was finally time to enter! I was immediately greeted by shocking displays of supposedly real torture instruments and loud and intense videos about the history of psychiatry and how it has been used to essentially torture historically marginalized communities, including women. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence , was constantly mentioned throughout the museum as the “father” of psychiatry, and additionally referenced several times as a well-known sadist. The museum has several television screens, each with different documentaries that depict graphic “experiments” and “treatments,” most of which are not inaccurate. Rush did believe in bloodletting and other controversial treatments, so this part of the museum was not inaccurate.
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The next part of the museum detailed how psychiatry was often used to justify racism, particularly during the Holocaust as well as in America during slavery and Jim Crow. From what I could tell from my own education about the eugenics movements, a lot of it appeared to be accurate: psychiatrists were amongst the biggest proponents of the Holocaust, and eugenics did reign supreme in America for quite some time. At this point I realized that the schtick of the museum was to equate psychiatry with historical pseudosciences, and although I am perceptive enough to recognize that as a potentially misleading tactic, it’s hard to focus when you are surrounded by pictures of Holocaust victims and tortured slaves. I literally felt sick to my stomach, so much of it was so graphic and hard to grapple with when it was presented so viscerally. The slavery and Jim Crow section in particular is staged in what is meant to look like a sort of shed (perhaps slave quarters?), which added an additional layer of nausea to the experience. When was I going to meet Tom Cruise? When were they going to show me a documentary about how to clear aliens from our bodies?
Next, there was a section about electroshock therapy which highlighted Frances Farmer, an actress who was subjected to experimental medicine and, essentially, torture in mental institutions. Most grunge fans may recognize her name from the Nirvana song “Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle,” but unfortunately this museum was my first introduction to her story beyond Cobain’s reference. Farmer was rumoured to have been lobotomized, though this was never confirmed. It was also at this section that I understood the extent of the production of the museum; when I stepped closer to read about Farmer, the exhibit lit up brilliantly, revealing an operating room with electroshock equipment that buzzed menacingly. I ventured further.
As I got deeper and deeper, the assertions the museum made were more startling and, from my basic understanding of statistics and science, inaccurate. There was an entire section on school shootings and the damage that pharmaceuticals have done to the youth of America. The museum features Columbine shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold displayed prominently on the wall, along with the different medications they were both taking at the time of the shooting. There were additionally pictures of young students who took psychiatric medications and later committed suicide or attempted bodily harm. Toward the end of the museum, there was a wall featuring crimes committed by well-known psychiatrists, such as sexual abuse and embezzlement; essentially, the museum tried to claim that psychiatrists are well-known criminals and generally immoral people. I may have almost failed statistics, but even I know that correlation does not equal causation; you cannot claim that antidepressants and psychiatry make people do horrible things because they simply are correlated with those people.
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One of the last sections of the museum was a wall of (mostly deceased) celebrities and the psychiatric treatment they had received; again, the museum was again making the case that they had died at the hands of psychiatry rather than by a confounding variable. And, against any rationality or better judgement, it’s pretty compelling to look up at portraits of Heath Ledger and Robin Williams and read about their lethal experiences with antidepressants and other psychiatric medications. This was another revelation I had about Scientology within the museum without even ever hearing or talking about it: the utilization of star power is a cornerstone to advancing its ideals and missions. Again, it’s hard to ignore how consumed both Scientologists and the general public are with celebrity culture when in the middle of Hollywood, staring deep into the eyes of people you feel like you know. This is why I can imagine that Scientology finds it effective to actively recruit celebrities to the religion, as we feel a sense of kinship and genuine connection to celebrities we are constantly exposed to, and that’s clearly what they were capitalizing on here.
Finally, finally, I was free. I left the museum and took a deep, relieving breath. Why the fuck did I think that was a good idea? Katie found me and asked me to fill out a survey about the museum; my hands shook as I tried to think of a fake address, because I did not want to receive anything to remind me of this horrific place.
I’m not saying that abuses in the field of psychiatry never happen or that the history of psychiatry (like American history) is not brutal and gut-wrenching. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be concerned about big pharma and overzealous, perhaps even greedy, doctors.  However, I’m wary of demonizing an entire field of medicine, which from my (anecdotal) experience really helps some people, over historical or rare cases of abuse. If anything, once I began to think rationally on my bus ride back home I realized that the museum simply made the case for more oversight for psychiatrists rather than a complete end to the entire medical practice. In fact, the farther away I got from Sunset Boulevard the more I realized how much assertions like the ones made in the museum stigmatize mental illness and its subsequent treatment. This isn’t just disappointing: it’s misleading and dangerous.
I don’t know man. I guess this is what I get going into something with preconceived notions of what I would find (i.e. celebrities and information about joining the SeaOrg)? I might have appreciated it more if I was actually a psychology major or pre-med, because I would have had the intellectual bandwidth to decide whether or not the claims were accurate or fishy.  Had I known the volume of information I was about to encounter I might have entered with a notebook so that way I could more thoroughly check the veracity of each and every claim made by the museum (which I clearly was unable to do here). Not to be uncouth, but I also feel like set-designers or event producers might also be interested in visiting; it is, again, exceptionally well executed.
Mostly I walked away having learned how easily someone can be seduced into an organization that, objectively, has bad optics and potentially even does harm to its followers: well produced and highly dramatized exhibits accompanied by historically accurate and graphic examples of human suffering that would make any sane person want to prosecute every psychiatrist to ever practice. And Scientology is a religion that promises to do just that. It’s simultaneously clever and eerie as fuck, and far too much for a casual observer like myself to try and come to terms with. What I thought was going to be a trap to get me to join Scientology ended up being much more subtle and sinister; this museum is ostensibly a means of manipulation. I have a deeper understanding of Scientology having visited the museum, even though Scientology was literally not mentioned once. And I guess that’s kind of the point.
So, if you draw one thing out of this rant, let it be this: if you are looking for a fun way to brush against the Church of Scientology, engage with Scientology, or meet Tom Cruise, this isn’t it. You’re going to have to sign a Million Year Contract like everyone else.
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rumandtimes · 3 years
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The Friends Reunion on HBO Didn’t Work
Jens Weingardt
Senior Streaming Contributor
The addendum to an old sitcom in cheap self-justification for an uninspired corporate acquisition.
The other day I was watching a strange medley of content. The Friends Reunion on HBO Max was one of the places it started. “The Friends Reunion,” well known as shite, should be hated for a number of reasons. Partially that it is overproduced and unwanted corporate garbage where an HBO exec pushed a $45 Million obligation onto the contracts of the “Friends” cast. The cast could not have had more of a enormous contempt for the entire process — not wanting to be there and not enjoying the event of their exploitation.
The in-house HBO celebration of buying Friends off of Netflix, or more accurately the delusional self-justification of HBO bosses, did not put the content of the show Friends on display as the product, but used the show as a pretence, a pretence to sell the actors.
The show was two hours of corporate bullshit, steeped atop the usual pile of shit that represents the shows syndication. Two hours of overproduced, uninspired, pre-planned anecdotes that still managed to come off as boring and unpractised fillers of time.
The Lady-Gaga-avec-gospel-choir remix of a stupid, three-line cat song; The five-minute-long asides about support beams blocking camera angles; The potato costume full of Justin Bieber; The fake audience; James Corden: A cavalcade of shit, that some asshole at HBO thought would constitute showmanship.
The absolute worst part of the slapdash arrangements were the ending. The beginning and the end were meant to look spontaneous and unrehearsed like a kind of documentary, but was peppered by the actors of the main cast commiserating with each other about how much they didn’t want to be there. The ‘surprise’ ending of the “Friends Reunion” was that David Schwimmer and Jennifer Aniston actually wanted to have sex with each other twenty-seven years ago and would fool around behind the scenes on set, but they never actually had sex because she was dating Tate Donovan and he was dating Natalie Imbruglia.
There are many things apparent to all of the actors which they never bring up: controversies on the show that go unsaid. Like the fact that Tate Donovan got a job on Friends as Jennifer Aniston’s boyfriend almost immediately after they had broken up in real life. Like the fact that Mathew Perry’s career imploded through a combination of drug abuse, near sexual assaults, bankruptcy, and being a generally unlikable person (they do mention he fell out of contact with the rest of the cast, and he also disappears from later parts of the taping).
The myth that HBO floats at the end that two of the main cast wanted to have sex but didn’t is not only dubious, completely ordinary and a damp squid, and pitiful as hell, but it is also super creepy and exploitative. Here two people are pushed up onto stage front and forced to talk about a crush they had thirty years ago that they never acted on. Even more sad given the real life undercurrent of David Schwimmer being a divorced single dad from a woman half his age, to Jennifer Aniston being a thrice-divorced, barren cat lady who used to be famous for skin cream commercials and playing sluts on TV.
Half the time is given up to loser cameos and interviewing the creators, and a cringeworthy scene about how the show Friends, airing on NBC in the nineties, was somehow empowering to Ghanese women. A show where literally over half the cast is men, and two of the main male leads are notorious for being unchallenged misogynists that are horrible to women (“How you doin’?”). A show that aired on NBC, one of the most racist and dishonest companies in American media, the same company that was actually caught numerous times lying to peoples faces on so-called “news” programs, the same company that hired Megyn Kelly as a breakfast anchor, the same company that was sued by Gabrielle Union for racist discrimination, the same company that is repeatedly called out for racism and lack of representation, from late night, to broadcast anchors, to — notably — the show “Friends” itself.
More unstated controversy in a dishonest and trashy get-together on HBO. Not to mention that it is revealed that the original concept for the show was based on the real life experiences of a cliche of under-30’s Jewish television wonks in New York City in the 1970’s, a fact that besides the casting of David Schwimmer and Maggie Wheeler was completely scrubbed from the final product contribute only more so to the problem of racism on Friends. Those three or four women in Ghana might claim that the show Friends made them feel empowered, but in reality they would never have had the possibility to be on that show in a thousand years, except maybe as one of David Schwimmer’s tragic and ill-treated girlfriends.
ANYWAY!, the Friends Reunion had nothing to offer, was creepy, and stank of the heavy hand of a fat corporate shit patting himself on the back for buying the rights to an old syndicated television series that ended almost 30 years ago, in a personal escape from the fact that television media is dying and HBO is desperately trying to remain relevant as an ad-based streaming platform by bringing on the likes of John Oliver, Conan Tepenius O’Briain, and Matthew Perry.
But what do the cast of Friends think about they show? “I wasn’t sure how tonight would go.” “This will never happen again.” “What I have to say probably isn’t interesting.” “It was a long time ago.” “I’m not similar to my character because at my age you have to grow up sometime.” “I was miserable every night.” If you listen to the statements of the cast main six, there is really nothing in the way of enthusiasm or high praise they have to proffer. Other than a few tears and creepy reveals the Friends Reunion was a bore.
I’ve watched many sitcoms, and “Friends” is an extraordinary situation comedy. That is, it flows well enough, as a cast of recurring characters crack superficial jokes while locked in the small reality of a living room. “Friends,” however, is not anything more than that. It is not a TV show. It is not a serial. It is not a drama. It has no narrative. It has no moral. It is utterly pointless and inconsistent, as many sitcoms are. It was leagues above its competitors ages ago, but it should not be celebrated. The world (specifically the corporate world, and the third-world nations they now conspicuously market the old goods to) should follow the main casts lead be a bit more apathetic to the franchise as a whole.
HBO’s “Friends: The Reunion” has nothing to do with the content of that series, possessing no acting whatsoever beside some indifferent table readings by the aging cast.
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icymibachelor · 3 years
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Recent News: Rachael Kirkconnell
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Rachael Kirkconnell was a contestant on the recent season of The Bachelor, 24 years old, and from Georgia. Several allegations about Rachael’s controversial and racist past were revealed during the airing of The Bachelor, all of which will be explored in this post.
On January 4th, 2021, the first allegation sprouted on TikTok, with a user claiming she went to high school with Rachael. Here, she accuses Rachael of teasing her for liking Black men in the past. Other individuals reached out to this user to share similar stories and offer support after the video went viral. Rachael remains silent, neither confirming or denying these allegations.
On January 26th, another TikTok user shared screenshots of Rachael’s Instagram account posting cultural appropriation pictures, allegedly liking posts of her friends in MAGA hats and even posing in front of Confederate flags. The silence from Rachael continues.
On February 4th, pictures of Rachael attending an Old South antebellum-themed party were revealed. For some additional context, Old South parties cannot be compared to a normal college party that individuals come across. This was a formal that commonly took an entire semester to plan, and invitations were required in order to attend. Moreover, the Greek society Rachael was a part of, Kappa Alpha Order, had nationally cancelled this event. Thus, by attending this party, Rachael wholeheartedly understood the racist implications and was supporting a racist event.
Finally, on February 11th, Rachael makes a public statement in regards to the photos and her past actions. Here is her full statement (Kirkconnell, 2021).
“While there have been rumors circulating, there have also been truths that have come to light that I need to address. I hear you, and I’m here to say I was wrong.
“At one point, I didn’t recognize how offensive and racist my actions were, but that doesn’t excuse them. My age or when it happened does not excuse anything. They are not acceptable or okay in any sense. I was ignorant, but my ignorance was racist.
“I am sorry to the communities and individuals that my actions harmed and offended. I am ashamed about my lack of education, but it is no one’s responsibility to educate me. I am learning and will continue to learn how to be anti racist, because it’s important to speak up in the moment and not after you’re called out. If you are a person who doesn’t understand the offense in question, I urge you to learn from my mistakes and encourage you to use them as a teachable moment.
“As for my family, I love them and how they raised me to be my own individual. They have always encouraged me to have my own views, opinions, and beliefs.
“As I was thinking about what I wanted to say, I couldn’t help but think about how sick people must be of reading these kinds of statements; how a person didn’t realize the trauma that their actions would inflict on other people. It must get so exhausting. I want to put my energy towards preventing people from making the same offensive mistakes that I made in the first place, and I hope I can prove this to you moving forward.
“Racial progress and unity are impossible without (white) accountability, and I deserve to be held accountable for my actions. I will never grow unless I recognize what I have done is wrong. I don’t think one apology means that I deserve your forgiveness, but rather I hope I can earn your forgiveness through my future actions."
That same day, contestants from Matt James’ season of The Bachelor step forward and share a joint statement in response to the controversy surrounding the franchise and Rachael Kirkconnell (Springs, 2021).
“We are the women of Bachelor Season 25. Twenty-five women who identify as BIPOC were cast on this historic season that was meant to represent change,” the statement reads. “We are deeply disappointed and want to make it clear that we denounce any defense of racism. Any defense of racist behavior denies the lived and continued experiences of BIPOC individuals. These experiences are not to be exploited or tokenized.”
The women also lent support to Rachel Lindsay, who had conducted Chris Harrison’s interview and had previously spoken up against The Bachelor’s lack of representation.
Rachel Lindsay continues to advocate with ‘grace’ from individuals who identify as BIPOC within this franchise. Just because she is the loudest, doesn’t mean she is alone. We stand with her, we hear her, and we advocate for change alongside her.
On March 15th, the finale of The Bachelor finally airs. Matt chooses Rachael Kirkconnell, giving her his final rose. However, I should note that during the time of the show filming, the allegations had not come to light yet. Matt was unaware of this controversy during the time of his decision.
On the same night, Rachael and Matt speak on the controversy during the AFR special with Emmanuel Acho. Matt shares that he and Rachael are not longer together after the Old South photos came to light. He reveals that he “tried to be there” for Rachael when the allegations were first publicized on social media, but when “[he] f[ound] out that they [were true], it just ma[de him] question everything” (James, 2021).
“If you don’t understand that something like that is problematic in 2018, there’s a lot of me that you won’t understand. It’s as simple as that.”
Rachael comes out after Matt, and a conversation is shared between Rachael and Emmanuel on her racist actions. When asked about her thoughts after seeing the pictures of herself at the Old South party again, she saw “someone who was living in this ignorance without even thinking about who it would be hurting” (Kirkconnell, 2021).
“You know, I never once asked myself at any point, what’s the tradition behind this, what does this represent, why do we wear those dresses? I’m not going to sit here and say I didn’t know any better, because I could have easily asked myself those questions. I never took the time to make that connection.”
Later, Matt and Rachael see each other again for the first time since their breakup. Rachael apologizes for her past actions and how that has affected Matt, while reminding him that she still believes their “relationship was very strong and the love [they] shared was very real” (Kirkconnell, 2021). 
Matt responds with:
“The most disappointing thing for me was having to explain to you why what I saw was problematic and why I was so upset. It was in the context of you not fully understanding my Blackness and what it means to be a Black man in America and what it would mean for our kids when I saw those things that were floating around the internet.”
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silikate548 · 7 years
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For our final project in Art, we were allowed to choose any subject matter and material we wanted. I used oil pastel to make some Handmaid's Tale fanart. Its title? "Fetus Face."
Though seriously, a lot of thought went into this. I knew from the start I wanted to do SOMETHING Handmaid's Tale related. Originally, I was thinking of the scene in the book where Offred and the Commander arrive at Jezebel's. I loved the imagery in that, especially of the VERY 80's outfit Offred was wearing. But, time constraints wouldn't allow it. So instead, I chose to do a single handmaid.
If you're familiar with the book, show, and/or movie, you know the Handmaids are forced to give up their entire identities, from their clothing choice to their given name. This erasure of the Handmaids' individuality was, to me, one of the most disturbing and interesting parts of the book. As a nod to the Handmaids' stolen personal identities, I chose to give this one no face.
You may also know that, aside from daily shopping, there is very little that a Handmaid is allowed to do for recreation. I thought about drawing the Handmaid outside in her mistress's garden but decided that wouldn't really capture the boredom she'd face. Instead, I drew her in her room, sitting on her windowsill, hands idle, staring forward.
The walls are green, in part to contrast with her red dress, but also because green is the color of plants. Handmaids share quite a bit in common with plants, actually. They are expected to bear "fruit" to those who own them, they are not given names or identities of their own, and if they become barren, they will be disposed of.
The wooden floors and window, likewise, are meant to emulate nature, and how the Handmaid's bedroom, much like a child's, is the only place that she might decide to call her own. What little privacy the room provides in the only natural thing remaining in the Handmaid's life, though the Sons of Jacob may claim Gilead's whole purpose was a return to the "natural" way of things.
The curtains are blue, for two reasons that may seem to contradict each other. Without a tie cinching them, they look a bit like flowing streams over the green walls, adding to the nature symbolism of the piece. However, blue is also the color worn by the Wives. The blue curtains serve as a reminder to this Handmaid that, even in her own room, her only remaining place of refuge, she is still under her Commander's and her Mistress's watch and control.
It's much brighter outside than in the room. This is because the conservation of the natural environment is one of Gilead's proudest, and perhaps only objectively good, achievements (This, though, isn't addressed as much in the 1985 book as in the 2017 Hulu series.) While the world as a whole may benefit from organic foods and reduced carbon emissions, it's not enough to make up for the suffering of the Handmaid. She'll have food in her belly and clean air to breath, but she is still a prisoner, stuck in a twisted system of commodification, rape, and the constant threat of death.
The fetus in her face was my art teacher's idea (shoutout to you, Ms. Keller) I really like what it does to the piece, because it emphasizes her lack of identity outside of her fertility and, frankly, makes the piece scarier.
Her race was probably the toughest thing for me to decide on. Originally, I had given her light skin. This was mainly to stick to canon, because in the book Gilead was extremely racist, forcing all Black people to move into a designated "National Homeland" in the Midwest. I was, frankly, really disappointed in how little Margaret Atwood discussed race in the book. The forced migration is mentioned so briefly I didn't even catch it the first time I read her book. Also, aside from (maybe) Rita, I don't think there was a single non-white character with a name. After mulling over the decision for a good while, I did make her skin darker. It was partially because of that frustration with the book. I also did it to make sure she wasn't mistaken for Offred. I thought long and hard about it, and how to be sure my decision was politically correct. As a Queer person I have some first-hand knowledge of how easy it is for a privileged person to mistakenly act homophobic, (whether through microaggressions or fetishization thinly veiled as "representation" in art). Still, I know better than to equate one form of discrimination to another. I can walk down a street without experiencing homophobia, but a Person of Color cannot do the same without experiencing racism. I can easily pass for straight. I don't carry my gayness on my skin. As a white person, I can't understand racism much better than I can understand how it feels to be punched in the face. I can be told all about the pain, the insult, and how much it stings, but I can't fully empathize since I've never experienced it myself. I knew it would raise some questions with people if I made the character a different race than I am. I have a bad habit of generally avoid discussion of social justice (including homophobia and sexism but especially those I don't experience personally, like transphobia and racism) in public. I get nervous talking about such sensitive subjects, my voice shakily wandering ahead of my brain as I try to gather my thoughts. I am progressively working to be more socially conscious, speaking up for women and minorities, even in those such moments where my voice falters. As nervous as I was making the decision, and later explaining it to one of my black classmates who asked why I did it, I'm glad I changed her skin. We all benefit from open discussions of prejudices, and the brief conversation my classmate and I shared was a great reminder of that.
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therethinkers · 7 years
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get out: black educator edition (new orleans schools)
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by a black educator in new orleans | pen name barbara jean wells 
The 2015-2016 school year was easily the most traumatic work year of my adult life. I was a teacher at an alternative high school in New Orleans, a job very similar to one I left in Philadelphia. Alternative schools are intended to address the pushout crisis by creating spaces for students who have not found success in traditional schooling environments. Sometimes this is simply because they need a smaller environment than those provided by traditional schools. Sometimes it’s because they are the kids who have dropped out or been pushed out of the charters that claim to be educating ALL of our kids. Sometimes they are kids in the justice system, or young parents caring for children of their own. The possibilities are endless. It’s a population that I am very comfortable with, having worked in alternative education for a few years and also one that I care deeply about because of the unique challenges and struggles that come with serving youth.
Despite my passion for, and comfort with, alternative education, last year led me to question the very foundation that I had built my career as an educator on. I cried a lot, emoted on facebook, journaled during professional development meetings, frequented happy hours with other educator-friends and soaked it all away over margaritas paired with chips, and salsa (yes, we’ll need another pitcher). I worked out for self-care, got a therapist to maintain balance, and dug into my yoga practice to begin meditating regularly. I did the usual things one does when they’ve got a stressful job.  
When those folks are teachers, all of the above are done with student stories sprinkled in between. Exasperating, funny, touching, and annoying moments with kids that make the job everything that it is. But when my coworkers and I went out to vent about a stressful day, the kids weren't the main topic of conversation. We talked about them, sure, but much more of our dialogue was spent on how racism played out in the daily grind of our work as educators. We vented about administrators whose savior complexes were evident in the very way they spoke to and about students. We talked about how meager the expectations were of our low-income, predominately Black kids. We talked about the lack of ability for our white coworkers to even acknowledge the life differences between themselves and their students, so great was their desire to be colorblind. And more than anything, we talked about how the behaviors that spawned from these beliefs about Black kids and the communities they came from indicated the same age-old (and, well… racist) idea that our students should not be expected to excel.
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What I realized halfway through this school year was that my desire to center Blackness in the classroom, to help my students unlearn most of the things that the media told them about themselves, still had to be done within a racist system. Perhaps this isn’t shocking to folks of color who are teachers, but after 9 years in the profession, the realization hit me like a ton of bricks. The progress I felt like I was making in the classroom with my students was directly counteracted frequently by other staff members in the building: those who looked down on them, made wild assumptions about their lives based on stereotypical views of Black communities, and centered conversations about the kids on their academic deficits more than anything else.
So what exactly did this look like on a day-to-day basis?
Extreme white saviorism
For starters, the level of white saviorism was intense. In this alternative school setting it translated to exceedingly low expectations of students and their futures. In one staff meeting, a white teacher claimed that it was actually a great thing if students ended up working at local grocery stores after graduating because at least, “they weren’t in the streets shooting each other up.” Others nodded along in agreement.
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The idea that they were essentially “saving” kids from themselves and the communities around them drove some staff members to befriend kids rather than encourage their academic or personal development. One white teacher whose actions were particularly infuriating, let’s call him Mr. Frank, taught special education students who struggled behaviorally and academically.  In this setting, it meant his class was full of the Black boys who could not sit still. Students dubbed it the place you go to “listen to music and eat snacks.”  In meetings, Mr. Frank spoke openly and often about all the academic tasks he felt like students were incapable of even trying. These ideas help to explain some of the trash that passed for rigor in his classroom. He let students print Wikipedia pages and paste them to trifolds for final project work. He excused them from completing assignments and rarely failed kids regardless of what their effort or attendance looked like. Instead of encouraging academic growth in any meaningful way, he took kids to the store, bought them food, and handed out money. Let’s pause here, because many of these things sound incredibly sweet when done by a family member or friend. And yes, relationships are super important when teaching. But building them isn’t the ONLY part of teaching. As educators we focus on building relationships with kids in order to better TEACH them. To do this we have to actually believe in their intellectual capabilities enough to push for their academic growth. Mr. Frank didn’t see the second part of the equation as important though. He thought so little of the kids’ intelligence that there was no urgency in actually teaching them. He was there to be nice to them. To call them his “boys.” To make friends.
Mr. Frank’s existence as a 60-something year old white man didn’t stop him from greeting Black kids as the n-word and jokingly calling a young woman a “ratchet ass bitch” in front of a group of males in order to get a laugh from them. In previous years before I had arrived to the school, Mr. Frank had a co-teacher who was a gay trans man.  When students in his class had been verbally assaulting, and in one instance physically taunting the co-teacher, Mr. Frank simply ignored the situation. He claimed his co-teacher needed to make better relationships with the kids, instead of using the teachable moment to encourage students to confront their blatant homophobia and transphobia. It would not have been easy. But actual, true teaching never is.
Over the course of my year there, it became clear that Mr. Frank’s class was a fun holding cell. Its sole purpose was to have somewhere to put kids. And with the low expectations and easy grades, it wasn’t difficult to see how the desire to be a savior to his idea of poor, broken, Black kids translated to the goal of befriending his students rather than teaching them.
the following is a snapshot of interviews with teachers and students about their experience.
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The privileging of white voice/ opinion
Outside of Mr. Frank’s outrageous everyday actions, another obvious indicator of racism in our workplace was the constant approval of white opinion and the subsequent shutting down of voices of color. One white teacher who was covering a Black educator’s classroom told students that their definition of racism, one that recognizes that all whites receive benefits and privileges from systems of white supremacy, was wrong because it made white people uncomfortable. He justified his assertion by coolly stating that he could speak to the issue because his partner was mixed race.
Over the course of the year, several teachers of color had complained about Mr. Frank’s behavior, specifically about their discomfort with him using the n-word and how his decision to do so made the workplace feel unsafe. They were told several times, “He has his methods.” Early in the year, a young Black woman was hired as his co-teacher but didn’t last in his classroom a month before needing to be placed with another educator. She expressed to me that he often seemed unprepared to teach and when she asked for lesson plans or outlines, she was scolded. He told her, “You don’t ask questions. I’ve been doing this for years. I’m the surgeon, you’re the assistant.” When she went to the principal with complaints of being treated condescendingly, she was reprimanded for causing trouble and made to sign a contract stating that she would never discuss Mr. Frank with other teachers while on the school premises.
Later in the year, when I tried to organize a meeting with a few teachers of color to talk about how best to deal with a white man calling Black kids the N-word, and brainstorm coping strategies for the growing list of racial microaggressions at work, I was called into the principal’s office for a meeting with her and the dean. Some folks suspected that someone had ratted me out and brought the principal the information. Others insisted that she regularly read staff emails. Either way, in the meeting I was made to apologize for my unprofessional behavior, despite the fact that I had previously addressed the principal with my concerns and was dismissed without any promise of further action.
All these instances taught an easy lesson. Other teachers of color and I quickly learned that if you had issues with how white teachers treated you, you kept your mouth shut. If you questioned how certain practices and behaviors were impacting students of color, you kept your mouth shut. And if you wanted to address issues of microgressions that made the workplace toxic, you didn’t discuss it at work in hopes of bringing about change. You went to happy hour with people you trusted and cried.
Valuing Intention over Impact
One of the major things that became apparent to me during my time at this school was how heavily white people who made the workspace uncomfortable leaned on their good intentions. Because everyone meant well, because everyone could couch their behaviors in the altruistic deed of educating Black kids with huge academic gaps, they did not seem to mind if their actions had negative impacts on coworkers of color or even the Black children they were supposed to be serving. When I realized this about my boss and coworkers, I began to see how strongly whiteness seeks to protect itself in schools. Everything from Mr. Frank’s “methods,” to teachers doing work for students they didn’t deem capable, to oft-expressed colorblind sentiments that white teachers used to make connections between themselves and the kids, were excused and never questioned because the people who did or said them “meant well.” It didn’t matter what impact this had on the kids and it sure as hell didn’t matter how it made staff members of color in the school feel.
It was around this time that I began to draw connections between law enforcement and education systems in this country. I knew from the many instances of cops who got off for murdering unarmed Black men and women, that whiteness in their institution also tended to protect itself. And much like with law enforcement, the issues that exist in education aren’t addressed as system-wide problems indicative of attitudes and biases towards people of color. Instead we discuss the few bad apples. In the education field, this means the teachers who DON’T care at all. They are essentially, the teachers with ill intent.
The problem with this approach is that most all white folks, teachers and otherwise, never see themselves as bad apples. They know that they mean well so they assume that they couldn’t possibly be a part of the problem. At this alternative school, the white folks who caused a great deal of the microaggressions could barely hear us decrying their actions and language. I imagine because our complaints were drowned out by the sound of them patting themselves on their backs every day for their hard work.
Recently, I read a headline that announced that percentages of Black teachers in the classroom have fallen drastically in the past few years. I didn’t bother reading the article because I felt like the wounds from last year were a little too raw for me to willingly subject myself to stories about why others like me may have been driven off. Halfway through the year when I was processing the notion of the education system being corrupt and failing to serve Black and Brown students, I posted a rant on Facebook. In it, I reflected on nearly 9 years in the education field and the experiences it took to get there. I specifically recalled going to grad school with people who made sweeping generalizations about Black/ Brown communities and consequently stereotyped their students as well. I remember smoking cigarettes after classes with fellow students of color lamenting the fact that some of the people in our Ivy League program were already in positions of power in schools full of Black children. I remember how proud they seemed of themselves for taking on the work of “fixing“ kids and schools, despite the lack of desire to fix their own racist viewpoints, language, approaches, etc.
Like last year, I brushed it all off over happy hours. I was still hopeful then. I thought that I could teach Black and Brown youth in a way that centered them, their stories, their beauty, and their lives. I did not consider that those grad school classmates who thought so little of us, and that people who shared their ideas, were already running the system and starting the charter schools. I did not consider that fighting for my kids essentially meant fighting against these people. It was a battle I was unprepared for when I first started teaching in 2007. It is a battle I expect to fight for the rest of my life. Though the new hope is to one day do it within an institution that is willing to take on the fight with me. This would save me from a career of holding my tongue until I get to half-priced drinks with other teachers of color who have learned that silence is the only way to stay in the ring.
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English identity and being white (5)
A personal reflection by Sunder Katwala, Director, British Future
Nobody told me when I was eight years old that there was any question of whether I was English. It was the first national identity crisis that I can remember: would Kevin Keegan would be fit to go to Spain for the 1982 World Cup? I was football-mad kid. The newsagent kept a reserved copy of Shoot! Magazine for me every week. How could anyone think that England’s prospects were none of my business?
Like most people, I had a national identity a long time before I held of any theories about national identity. I probably started out as “equally English and British” without hearing about how sociologists ask people to weight the relative importance of our different national identities, given that our teams competed under both names in different sports. Realising that I was English may even have come first, by a random quirk of sporting chronology. Having had no memory at all of the 1980 Moscow Olympics, when I was just six, I do remember being glued to the 1984 Games beamed in from Los Angeles. After a fierce controversy about whether the South African teenager Zola Budd should be allowed to become British, I saw Seb Coe, Daley Thompson and Tessa Sanderson win gold medals for Britain. Whether you could be black and British was not something that my ten year old self would have assumed was a settled question, though some people were pleasantly surprised to see that confirmed again, by Linford Christie draped in the Union Jack in Barcelona in 1992, or even when Mo Farah won his gold medals at the London Olympics another two decades later.
Of course, my teenage self gradually became aware that national identity was more controversial and contested than I had realised as a child. Attending football matches in the 1980s introduced me to vocal and visceral public racism, and then to anti-racism too. I heard Cyrille Regis talk about receiving a bullet in the post warning him not to step on to the Wembley turf to play for England. I saw bananas thrown at John Barnes – and heard that England fans had chanted “one-nil” when he scored his brilliant, mazy goal against Brazil in the Maracana, to put England two-nil up. Black goals didn’t count was the theory, for those whose allegiance to the National Front trumped celebrating the team’s best player. Who should be allowed to be English was clearly something that some people wanted to argue about.
I didn’t know much about politics – but politicians seemed to have a lot to say about sport and identity. When I was sixteen, Norman Tebbit declared that a large proportion of Britain’s Asians failed to pass his cricket test. “Which side do they cheer for? Its an interesting test. Are you still harking back to where you came from or where you are?”
I didn’t like that. My Dad had been here over two decades. Expecting him to ditch India for England to prove his loyalty to this country didn’t seem realistic or fair. Its not how identity works – and it wasn’t really cricket. But my main problem with this “cricket test” was that I had always passed it. I vividly recall my Dad jumping dementedly around the living room as the underdogs India defeated the invincible West Indies in the 1983. I was happy that they won – but it was his team, rather than mine. Still, the test really wasn’t cricket. I still supported England – though not really, to be honest, against that brilliant West Indies team of Viv Richards – but kept rather quieter about it. Insistent demands for assimilation can set back the thing that they claim to want.
My eighteen year old self would have been considerably “more British than English”, though undoubtedly still both. The public image of Englishness was too exclusive, too aggressive, with supporters marauding around European capitals, singing “if it wasn’t for the English you’d be Krauts”. I got involved in efforts to change that, among football supporters, using the St George’s Flag at Wembley to promote a more positive patriotism. And I became much more confident about being English – again – after the glorious football summer of 1996, in which “football coming home” told a much softer story of a celebratory English identity, not arrogantly expecting victory, but proud of our role as hosts and never giving up hope of one day winning again. 
What do we take from this?
The new YouGov findings for the Centre for English Identity and Politics will come as a pleasant surprise to some.  If Englishness has been largely left to fend for itself, it has done much better than we might have expected. Perhaps we owe rather a lot to John Barnes and Paul Ince, and now to Raheem Sterling, Moeen Ali and Nikita Parris as powerful exemplars of how our country has changed. We have left Gareth Southgate and Lionessses captain Steph Houghton to be narrators of our modern English identity, inviting us all to be part of and support our team, partly because so few others in public life have stepped up.
But it is important to understand that the inclusive Englishness we recognise in sport could also reflect the latent, under-recognised and under-articulated everyday lived reality of England today. 
These findings make me wonder if we have rather underestimated the importance of a “birth-right claim” to English identity as a potential driver of inclusion rather than exclusion.  We worry, naturally, about an exclusive “nativism” in the era of Trump and Salvini. But perhaps we have overlooked how birthright claims have an inclusive impact too. If being born in England is an important, undeniable claim to be English then this inevitably expands the group of who we, the English, are. 
Migrants to Britain like my Dad understood that they were invited to be British: that is what his new passport said. Nobody talked to him about Englishness; migrants to England have rarely identified as English. But that was different for their children, born British, in England. There was no sense for us of “keeping a suitcase packed, just in case” as first generation migrants would sometimes say, metaphorically or actually, when recalling the Powellite era. That birthright confidence that there was nowhere to send us back to extended to a stake in Englishness too.
After all, I was born in a hospital in Doncaster, in Yorkshire, in England on an April day in 1974. My parents had come from India and Ireland to work for the NHS. That is a very British story. But if you are born in England, and grow up in England, or you ever visit friends in Scotland in a United Kingdom increasingly aware that it is a multi-national polity, then it gradually becomes obvious that it is an English story too.
That is why there has been a significant and quiet inter-generational shift – from a sense of belonging to England to the right to stake a claim to English identity. Perhaps seeing John Barnes or Paul Ince on the TV helped to clinch the point – but, once you thought about it, it became obvious that you didn’t need to be called up to play for the national team to share the English identity too. 
Sport can have an unrivalled symbolic power. Nations are imagined communities, where we share something with millions of people that we don’t know. Shared experiences can make us a community of fate, sharing memories of victories and agonising defeats, that become stories of who we are and what we hope for together.  But sport has had an outsized importance, because English identity has so often been invisible outside of the stadium. England has so few institutions – beyond a football, cricket and rugby team, unless we remember a Church famous mainly for being somewhat agnostic.  There is a striking contrast with Scotland – which, for a long time, placed far too great a burden on glorious sporting failure as the symbol of a nation, until a much broader cultural, political and social renaissance in shaping a modern Scottish identity meant that much less would ride on dodgy refereeing decisions on the pitch.  It is time for Englishness to follow suit.
It is not so difficult to be mixed race, English and British, to be black and Asian and English, but that discourse lacks the familiarity of a decisively civic and multi-ethnic Britishness.  We may have seen – and shared and enjoyed - an inclusive Englishness, as a “show not tell” phenomena on the pitch. We have done less to develop a way of talking about English identity that reflected that reality.
These new findings show that is increasingly recognised and accepted – across the generations – as a broadening of the category of who we, the English, are, that most people think now reflects who we, the English, are today. We might not win the women’s football World Cup or the cricket World Cup this summer – but it is good to have some good news about England. It should increase our confidence that we can shape the inclusive Englishness that we want to share.
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litterpinkglitter · 6 years
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You’re White, Don’t Say the N-Word
My stepsister Nicole just turned thirty; I hope this year she stops casually dropping the N word. I went out to dinner a couple of nights ago with Nicole and her dad, celebrating her birthday and eating delicious pasta. I was not expecting the dinner discussion to get as deep as it did. To set the scene, I was invited to dinner with her and her father who I do not know that well; what I do know is that he is an avid Trump supporter, so naturally I wore a hip tie-dye shirt with Trump’s face on it that says “impeach” over it. Her dad advised me not to wear that shirt on the Upper East Side because most people there are Trump supporters. He mansplained that Hillary did not win because she has a bad attitude and Trump was more likeable (which I found humorous). I should mention here that both Nicole and her father are privileged and white.
I voiced my opinion that someone should not be president if they go around sexually assaulting women and mentioned that he is an awful president for many reasons. Nicole justified my words by explaining to her dad in a very patronizing tone “well...she’s a feminist.” I then asked her out of curiosity if she was a feminist and she replied, “what does that even mean?” I explained that feminism means that women and men deserve equality. Nicole then said she is a feminist but added defensively that she is “not as much of a feminist” as I am. So, I guess that means that she does not believe in equality as much as I do? It is also interesting to me that she used the word “feminist” as an insult when she did not know what it meant.
We then moved onto another topic and out of nowhere, she dropped the N word (with a hard “R” I should add.) I was so taken aback by it that I mentally blocked out everything that was said around the use of that word. I immediately looked to her dad to see if he would speak up, but he said nothing and did not seem phased by it at all. I was the only one at the table who considered what just happened as an issue. Although I felt very alone and outnumbered, I told Nicole that she can’t use the N word and that it’s extremely offensive. With a lack of empathy, emotion, or basic understanding, she dismissed it with, “but my black friend gave me permission” and “I’m only saying it around you.” It just doesn’t work like that. You should not be asking anyone for permission to say something racist and then brag about getting permission...maybe recognize it as a racist word that has been used to dehumanize black people throughout history. It would be one thing if she was part of the African American community, but she is not. The N word does not belong to her at all. She doesn’t understand her own privilege. Admittedly, I certainly didn’t when I was growing up.
When I was living at home in high school I was constantly with my family and I looked up to my dad, stepmom, and Nicole. I thought that since they were adults they should be able to teach me right from wrong. I really looked to them to set an example and especially took notice of Nicole because she got the most attention from my family -
my dad always implied that he wanted me to be more like her and dress more like her. I would put on a comfortable outfit to wear to school and my dad would say something like, “you should put a different shirt on. Don’t you care about how you look? I mean, Nicole wouldn’t wear that to school because she cares. You should care too.” I grew up in a home where I was constantly compared to my stepsister. She was praised for her looks and how she presented herself while I was put down for that same reason. However, my family did motivate me to do well in school and strive for As (which I always got BTW). All throughout high school I received compliments for my grades since I was known as the more bookish and school-smart one in my family. My brains did not go unnoticed, but looks were definitely more of a priority in my household. I also got the hint that it was important to stay skinny and would often hear my dad comment, “your friend put on a lot of weight since freshman year and looks too fat.”
An even worse comment came from Nicole when we went to go get fro-yo one day; she leaned over to me and gestured to a girl in the store saying, “I don’t think fat people should wear crop tops. It’s disgusting.” I remember this brief moment from a couple of years ago because I felt my face get intensely hot and bright red as I was explaining why she shouldn’t body shame other women for wearing something they feel comfortable in (also note that these are just two tiny examples out of what seems like a million). I grew up around a family that is constantly judging, scrutinizing, and shaming everyone around them based on their looks. They did not value intelligence and never went out of their way to educate themselves on topics they did not understand. Obviously, growing up in this kind of environment really shaped me. I got so used to hearing these judgements that I thought it was natural to behave this way too and did not see why it was a problem for a long time.
It was very challenging for me to realize that I should not look to my family to set an example for me and it took a lot of hard work to unlearn all the unhealthy behaviors that had become normalized by them. I grew up in a toxic environment where I have distinct memories of my stepsister saying the N-word a lot at home. My family wouldn’t say anything about it and would even laugh because they thought she was being funny. So I grew up not knowing what the word meant or why it was not okay to say. I grew up thinking, “oh, if you say this word people will think you’re funny.” I am now a stand-up comedian, so I have always grown up wanting to get a laugh. I hate to admit it, but I have said the N-word a handful of times in my life, not even realizing what I was saying was harmful. I had said it around a couple of friends and they would laugh, so I thought it wasn’t a big deal. Eventually, I grew up and educated myself, vowing to never utter that word again. I do not hang around with the same group of people that used to validate my use of the word and only surround myself with people who also agree that the N-word should never be said by white people. I honestly look back on myself saying that word and feel so ashamed of myself, but I wish I had people in my life that did not think it was funny and encourage it. I look back on this as a learning experience and can now say I know better. I became my own parent by teaching myself what is right and wrong. I now know exactly who I am and what I believe in. That young girl who said that word is not who I am today. I made a mistake that I own up to and since then have made a promise to continue to become educated and learn about topics before I speak about them. I fully identify as a feminist, activist, and ally.
It took a lot of learning and making mistakes to get to where I am now and I am writing this in hopes that my sister realizes it is never too late to change your mindset or the language you use. After the dinner, I called my dad and stepmom to urge them to put an end to this and teach Nicole that she cannot say the N-word. They of course laughed it off and excused her behavior by describing Nicole as “daring and different.” Unlike them, I think what makes someone “daring and different” is having the courage to stand up to racism, sexism, misogyny, and injustice instead of adding to the problem or letting it go unnoticed. My dad also said that he would talk to Nicole, because swearing like that is low-class and that “she cannot attract a man with that language.” This is problematic for many reasons, but I was particularly taken aback by his belief that the N-word is in the same category as every other swear word. My problem with her has nothing to do with cursing. She can say any swear word she wants to as long as it is not one that dehumanizes people. Another issue I have with his claim that she seems “low-class” when using such words is that describing people as low-class in a derogatory way is classist. My dad, a privileged straight white cisgender man, equates low-class as being inherently bad and negative. He also stated that my sister can say the word because it is “freedom of speech” but why would someone want to use their freedom of speech to oppress others? Why should we let them?    
The last thing my dad said to me about the topic was to just “let it go” but I am here to declare that I will never “let it go.” I am writing this letter to hold myself accountable and to hold my sister accountable for our words and actions so we can make a positive change. I have heard some of my white friends say the N-word in the comfort of spaces with other white people and it happens way more often than it should. This word comes from the mouths of some of my most liberal and #woke friends that I know. They also say it in an attempt to be funny and think that since they aren’t saying it in a derogatory way that it is okay. I do not think that every person who says this word is racist and terrible and mean-spirited, but rather, that it comes from a place of ignorance. We should not assume that every person who says the N-word is intentionally being racist but perhaps, like me and Nicole, they come from an environment where they simply never learned. I have since moved out of my house and have become a more independent thinker. I have learned from my mistakes and my family’s mistakes and I will try to never make them again. I have put so much effort into unlearning all of the negative things my family has taught me. Anyone can make this change, but it all starts with educating ourselves and others about these issues. There is nothing wrong with admitting that you started from a place of ignorance and moved past it. I actually find that to be a noble trait that you can use to inspire others from a place of love, understanding, and compassion. Sorry Dad, but we will not “let it go.” You shouldn’t either.
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