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wisedabarber · 4 years

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Open Reflection

March 31,2020

𝔏𝔢𝔱𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔗𝔬 𝔑𝔦𝔭

___

By Simon P Faison

INTRODUCTION

Dear Nip,

Damn Bro, I can't believe it’s been a year since you were stolen from us. You were a king among kings, a true revolutionary that wished nothing more than to have your people prosper yet your life still was stolen way too soon.

The world has definitely changed in that time since you left, but your message and example of, Hussle & Motivation, has spread far and wide. Not a month goes by where I don’t see someone tagging ”The Marathon Continues” on some community activist work they're doing and The Marathon Flag still flies high overall many hearts.

For as Minister Louis Farrakhan prophesied and a year ago today and is quoted on the picture above.

The work your life produced has gone down in history as something that changes the world.

Your work and efforts in urging gangs to revert back to their origins of:

protecting their environment,

abiding by a code of ethics

bringing money into the community

respecting elders and children

All the things that mainstream media forgets to mention when they talk about gang culture. Yet you live this every day all the until the end, standing on it showing them who to a Community Revolution In Process.

You are the reason why Bloods and Crips have slowed down on murdering one another. You have shifted the narrative by befriending and working with Bloods like Game and Yg and directing your music videos with imagery that depicts red and blue side by side.

On April 5th, 2019, as we celebrated your life and legacy the world realized they had lost a True King and Light in this world when nearly every Los Angeles gang — crips, bloods, rivals from all sides — came together to form a peace treaty.

They expected your death to perpetuate more gang violence, but instead your homecoming was met with peace. To think that something of this magnitude could take place over one man’s death is the greatest evidence as a testament that ’The Marathon Continues.”

Hussle & Motivation

What Follows is a post I begin on August 7,2019 just two days after your Death but did not finish until the day after.

It’s amazing how time flies but as I read this in my memories, I realized that though we got a long way to go, especially with the world as it is right now with the Coronavirus. I still feel like though much has been done in regards to what I was talking about in this post, it is still as relevant to today as it was then, so I have added it to this letter.

Biggie said it best

Your nobody

til

somebody kills you.

And unless you were ”woke” as fuckedor Crippin most y'all never heard a Nipsey Hussle song, muchless heard what he was doing for the black community. But now he is dead, it's Nipsey this Nipsey that.

Man, get off Nipsey’s dick

Everyone outhere posting and saying "The Marathon Continues" but let's keep i a stack, ain’t hardly anyone really living the Marathon within themselves

Nipsey was a true poor righteous teacher in every way, who really went back to the streets even before he made it in music, to teach the youth the truth.

And he ain’t just preach about from on high.

He ain’t just talk the talk, every day he lived it!

Nipsey didn't just talk about the need to create black-owned businesses to put more jobs in the so-called urban communities. He went to the hood, and did it himself (starting with his own), then came back and showed others how to do the same. As he said ina famed tweet

So it really ain't worth anyone talking about ”The Marathon Continues” until we start investing in our own community. We must show the ones who would rather see our people in the slums, that we are not slaves or peasants but that we are Kings and Queens with infinite potential.

We must Strive for Black excellence in and a around our communities. Instead of encouraging the young Kings to hit the block, encouraging them to go to school for knowledge is key or if not that then encourage them to be entrepreneurs , computer engineers, even doctors or lawyers.

Instead of teaching yea daughters how to twerk and get a nigga with money, how about you showing her how to respect her body, her mind, and herself as the Queen she is and neva depend no no man to nothing she kan do for herself, to take cato get out be the Queen she really is.

If we the very people who Nip the urban community, gang members and everyone his life kan do than then and only then we’ll be able to truly say with pride,"The Marathon Continues" because now you are living the Marathon and by doing this we hold true to the pledge we said with pride and grief along with you beautiful Queen Lauren that night we celebrated your life all over the country and in every hood.

Conclusion

Nip there is no good way to end this letter. An though I never met you or even corresponded with you. Your life and your work resonated and motivated me on the path I walk now and to strive for the future I hussle to gain not just for me but for all our people.

So I concluded with the words of Queen Lauren, which still rings as no truer as a statement that anyone can say about what your life and death meant to so many who admired your drive and applauded your achievements, then and forever, may you rest light Dear King.

I leave as I came, giving you by best wishes of Peace Profound

#themarathoncontinues #king nipsey #nipseyforever #nipseythegreat #victorylap

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clarasimone · 5 years

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A perspective on the forewarning fascist iconography in GoT

Was it yesterday ? I reacted to a mind-provoking aesthetic analysis of GoT reblogged by @felixthemudnescat ... which basically no one reacted to (LOL) but... chatting with @scratchybeardsweetmouth and @ser-jorah-the-andal, I felt like revisiting it to add observations to my initial reaction. Even if it’s too heavy-meta for such a beautiful summer day. @felixthemudnescat pardon me for not using the reblog button cause I want to do this under the dot-dot-dot so as not to weigh down the usual degree of levity in our tumblr group ;-)

Also I only realized today that you actually reblogged without commenting and I assumed, maybe wrongly, that you adhered completely to what you reblogged. And that might not be the case, so I’ll alter my text accordingly...

So here we go... (my input comes at the end)

Anonymous asked:

Girl. Gurl. Who the fuck is Leni Riefenstahl? Y'all Sansa stans pulling the most elaborate nonsense out of your asses to justify shitty writing. Or you twist everything and make D&D sound as if they're the most brilliant minds the world has ever seen LOL

fedonciadale answered:

Hi there!

If you would have taken one moment to look up Leni Riefenstahl - and I assure you that it is not difficult to look her up - you would not have combined your question with a comment about the writing…. Look her up and learn a lesson about how tyrants manipulate.

The visuals of the show are alluding to famous/ notorious shots of Leni Riefenstahl. You would agree that the visuals are something that gives us hints? In addition to the dialogue?

Sansa stans have complained about the writing since season 5…. You all - I’m just assuming you are a Dany fan, correct me if I’m wrong - had no complaints about shitty writing in season 7?

Look I am not saying that the way D&D got to DarkDany this season was well executed, but the foreshadowing and the character development are there. And actually from all the things the show did Daenerys is one of the better from book to screen. The hiding of her path to ruthlessness by filming from her POV is well done in season 1 to 6, and the triumphant visuals are part of that.

Visuals are part of the foreshadowing. It did not come out of nowhere and it was always a major plot point - as has been argued by book readers for ages. That Dany blew up King’s Landing was always to be the culmination of her arc. And it was always meant to hit you in the gut. So, as you do nicely put it : get your head out of your ass as and realise that you have been duped. And ponder about why? Was it because Dany is beautiful? Was it because she had the occasional bouts of benevolence? Was it because you thought she was entitled to an ugly chair because she suffered? Was it because she was set up against people coded as villains, so that you don’t care about how she defeated them? Was it because she is a woman and woman can’t be evil?

Take your pick and learn something about yourself and your own bias, how we can be duped by a tyrant! If you do that you are doing exactly what GRRM intended his readers to do by writing Dany like he did.

une-nuit-pour-se-souvenir

(in fiction, all these logos meant to reference the nazi flag)

fedonciadale

Reblogging for @une-nuit-pour-se-souvenir ’s excellent additions. I could not have done that because that film is actually forbidden in Germany.

justacynicalromantic

Ohhhohohoho the last one - I am😏 at people who half a year ago threw stones at me when I argued that Dany has always had parallels with Hitler.

felixthemudnescat

Found this shared on Quora, had to re-blog!

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Hi @felixthemudnescat long time no see !

I had not seen the original posting of this. My first instinctual reaction to this iconographic/aesthetics research is to object to the simple equation of Daenerys with Hitler. No fiction character will ever match the scope of evil (for lack of a better word) this man and his ideology represented. By ricochet and association, it makes every fan who was moved by Daenerys a potential Nazi sympathizer and that makes no sense. It’s also unnecessarily hurtful and insulting both to these fans and the real World (those who suffered and still suffer from The Holocaust). This said, the iconographic evidence you provided through your reblog has weight and is exactly what I referred to in some of my posts as the visual clues given in the show as to Dany’s *possible* arc, its *possible* finality (more on the *possible* further down); clues which scream at you if you have the cultural baggage to recognize them, and when you binge-watch the series 3 times in one month instead of watching it an ep at the time over 8-9 years. The middle seasons are especially ripe with these visual signs because they’re tagged unto somewhat repetitious narrative (Dany freeing/conquering one city at a time with little intimate character dev scenes). And @fedonciadale is right in wanting fans to look more closely into themselves; we shouldn’t close ours eyes on the shady ideological and moral symbols casting shadows on Daenerys throughout the seasons. But they were shadows. I don’t think they were meant to be the beginning and end to all things explaining the character.

@felixthemudnescat or @fedonciadale don’t you think D&D were building something much more subtle than the end result they opted for and which gives weight to your comparative iconographic essay ? For many seasons, the fascist references or foreboding reminders of Targaryen madness never outweighed the characterizations of Daenerys as a young woman who, regardless (or because ?) of her thwarted and abusive upbringing was trying to conjugate her own suffering and road to affirmation with the conquerer’s path given her. She might not have questioned the necessity/validity for her to conquer her way back to Westeros, as the only way she could get home, but she didn’t do it through simple rampage either. She did care to free the people she needed to build her armies. She did have a heart. This she did spontaneously; it came from a deep source within her, not a calculated one. Even if, of course, it turned out to be an astute strategy. And that sets her apart from the Nazis and its leader. At their best, D&D conjugated the two: giving us a rounded character build-up and evolution with ominous symbolic shadows lurking about her. @scratchybeardsweetmouth also made me realize, I who have not read the novels, that this humane aspect of Daenerys is brought even more to the foreground in the books. I quote @scratchybeardsweetmouth: “In the books (...) she repeatedly communicates firsthand with her freed people. She hears their opinions, is not afraid to mingle with them, always finds a way to protect them, even went out of her way to help heal some when a disease was about...” Without getting as much detailed info on her compassionate stance and actions in the show, it’s certainly the impression she indeed left us with, and it’s what her most faithful and steadfast companion, ser Jorah, sees in her and repeatedly says out loud, lest we forget it ;-) (“You have a gentle heart,” etc.)

So I thought it was IMMENSELY daring of D&D (or the novelist I’ve not read yet) to give us that scene where Daenerys is called Mhysa/Mother by the slaves she freed because the scene was inhabited with so many conflictual signs: I was all at once moved and sooooo worried as to where this could lead. Moved because, bottom line, these slaves are freed, actually freed, it’s the start of something. Dany has always given those she freed a choice to leave if they so wished… Moved because it’s a woman effecting the freeing, not a man… Moved because it’s Dany, the girl who suffered, who was a slave of sorts, that does the freeing, not her mentors…. Moved to see a culture refer to their freer as “Mother” (what a great homage to mothers, to women in general) / buuuuut also worried to see a culture refer to their freer as “Mother” because it seems to infantilize them on screen.

Here we could also open up a whole debate about the malaise one can feel in seeing an Aristocratic White Woman free Third World People but I urge you to go read @khaleesirin‘s meta writings on the subject. She makes a great case for us NOT to see Daenerys in this fashion. Regardless of her looks and lineage, the novels (and GoT, I insist in my chats with @khaleesirin ;-) shows her to be like the people she frees: an Other. She like then is homeless, uprooted, migrant, disenfranchised. If we fail to see it in Essos, the show really drives this home once Daenerys sets foot in Westeros where NO ONE welcomes, understands or appreciates her. (Which suddenly complexifies our rapport to Sansa and the Northerners we grew to love and respect since they seem not to be above xenophobia, and racism.)

But to get back to the Mhysa scene. Once the worrying starts, I can’t seem to stop it, even as I am moved to tears. Literally. Because of the above-mentioned qualities of it, and also possibly because of the Christ-like iconography it uses to celebrate Dany (”Let the little children come unto me” - if I may paraphrase the New Testament -- and thanks to @ser-jorah-the-andal for the reminder). And I’m always partial to feminizations of Christ; I love it, I think it’s sublimely subversive :-) But I’m also kicking myself for liking this because I fundamentally don’t want a Messiah saving the Third World, I want the Third World to save itself... and I’m worried. I’m really worried as I watch Daenerys triumph in this scene because we know she’s lacking important elements in her “psycho-affective and socio-political tool kit” (regardless of the quality and loving care of advisers now on hand, *cough* Jorah -- in the books @scratchybeardsweetmouth tells me she needs no advisor to keep her moral compass straight) and, so, will this get to her head ? Will she get drunk on her Messiah complex (and of course she does at the end of season 8) ? And what will happen if those she freed disappoint her (again flashforward to the end of season 8) ? And how will she rule them exactly (ditto) ? And, finally, yes, worried because, the fascist iconography is there and I’m going: omg where are they going with this ?

Here I want to open another parenthesis, also brought on by something @ser-jorah-the-andal wrote me: “if this is what they meant in the first place, they sure as hell didn’t bother to tell anyone in the cast so they could act accordingly, tho a case could be made that Dany never saw herself as the villain so that’s why they didn’t tell Emilia.” Indeed I’m sure the cast, or at the very least Emilia Clarke, were never told about the endgame, or never cued to the quoting of fascist iconography in some of Daenerys’ triumphant scenes. Clarke’s shocked reaction upon reading the last screenplays is a testament to her profound surprise... and this raises ethical questions, doesn’t it ? I mean in the ethics of creative partnership. It’s a recent debate possibly because there are so many tales of directors manipulating actors into giving them the performance needed to embody and communicate the discourse they want to leave us with. But the professional in me cringes here a bit. You’d hope they would trust actors enough to let them into what it is exactly they’re supposed to be creating...

This said, up to the moment before “the bells” scene in season 8, I had nonetheless seen D+D and EC give us a woman struggling morally with her choices. That’s important to state. And to get back to the above demonstration of fascist parallels, well, please, let’s point out that the Nazis and their leader never did struggle morally with what they were doing (or if they did, History bears no markers -- I’m talking about the Nazis here, not the German people as a whole). And I was prepared to see Daenerys fail because she never healed, she never achieved psycho-affective soundness (shall we get into the chapter of her misconstruing what love is ? Her relationship arc with Jorah speaks volumes) but I was expecting her to feel remorse if she did succumb to true fascism; remorse to the point of self-execution if you will, because that’s the kind of moral person D+D had been building for 7 years. But after D&D sent her over the edge, they erased all the previous nuances they had built into her, and I believe, tried to explained it away with a broken heart, megalomania and madness….

So if their plan was truly to make us see her as a fascist leader of the scope we’re talking about here, the way the above visual essay seems to suggest, they would have fleshed out her character’s arc accordingly throughout the seasons, and they didn’t. There were clues as to the possibilities -- yes, Dany stepping out for her final speech is absolutely shot like Triumph of the Will by Riefenstahl… but it’s also infused with other iconographic references. That image of her merging with Drogon’s wings belongs to the fantastic, and makes her into a formidable and powerful Id, which can be construed as a positive subversive marker. And some of us do celebrate WrathfulDany for this reason....

The reality of GoT is that there were no actual scenes developing her fascist ideology. So let’s not confuse allusions to fascism with actual fascism. With all D+D’s failings towards the end, Daenerys remained a more nuanced and contradictory character than that. She is NOT Hitler, please......

The iconographic research you provided in your reblog @felixthemudnescat show us one important aspect of Dany’s subtextual arc but not the full picture. It’s missing the heart and the suffering behind the soul who fell from grace.

I hope you don’t construe this long winding reaction as a slam. I know you come from a very specific place in regards to Daenerys. I just thought the excellent research you provided deserved to be reblogged, but with an added perspective ;-)

#got meta #got analysis #daenerys targaryen #Ser Jorah Mormont #fascism

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