I'm getting through my work day by imagining how CQL characters might manage it, especially given some past popular posts positing Jiang Cheng as a social worker.

(Advocacy is different than social work: long story short, our focus is crisis intervention and supporting folks in getting to a place of safety, emotionally and/or physically. We're kinda like the street medics/paramedics to the longer term care of mental health, case management, and healthcare workers. In the context of social services in my region, the main areas of advocacy are domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking, although of course advocacy also exists as a more general noun.)

Disney Fever Rant

Let’s be honest with ourselves, the Family Friendly Disney©️™️ Corporation became nothing but another soulless, creatively bankrupt, money hungry business that has a board full of greedy — potentially and allegedly (don’t sue me Disney) potentially criminally so — directors who, according to Abigail Disney allegedly underpay their employees, and only put in any sort “effort” (READ: spending half of their film’s marketing budget buying up opening night seats to make sure that every single one of their films makes $1 Billion dollars because God forbid Disney have a single flop), believed they didn’t need to market Galaxy’s Edge because Chief Executive Asshole Bob “I know we’re having a bad quarter & our PR is in the shitter but imma take a book tour for my autobiography real quick” Iger thought it would market itself (this is the same Disney CEO Bob Iger, by the way, who keeps raising prices because he’s so confident in the brand created, built, and embedded permanently within previous decades of Americana due to the hard work and creative genius of Walt Disney that he believes he can peddle out absolute garbage without consequence. CEO of Disney Lil’ Bitch Bobbie “My salary is 1,000x Greater Than the Average Disney Employees Even Though My Decisions Are Causing a Cutback in Hours and Even Getting People Laid Off” Iger really got his head up his ass because he believes he can say shit insanely out of touch and greedy shit like “[I can’t imagine] a maximum price guests will pay for a ticket to [our] theme parks” and keep hiking up the prices until one day, big surprise, this foolish, smug turd charged too much or didn’t market enough or maybe, people are just not blinded by the now-defunct and decades-long neglected Disney Magic™️ because the man in charge is more focused on a single-minded and extremely concerning-to-artistic-integrity-and-the-very-concepts-of-free-speech-and-fair-trade-and-anti-monopolistic fair business practices of purchasing every potentially lucrative IP known to man in a move so anti-competitive that they were forced by the fucking U.S. Justice Department to sell off some of their news properties — oh, but it’s okay, guys! The extremely hardworking and under-appreciated employees of Disney World will finally be making a baseline amount of $15/hour, so at least those hardworking folks can have the chance of affording a shared apartment less than 40 minutes away from the park! And hey, at least we’ll inevitably get a Summer Blockbuster X-Men trilogy, which I’m sure won’t be a bland and extremely superficial set of films more concerned with entertaining a general audience than preserving the heart of X-Men and why it was created and what it continues to symbolize. Good Ol’ Bobbie Buy-ger’s “Hello, Fellow Children” Disney will absolutely not make a mockery of the integrity with which those contemporaneously radical set of complex and volatile cultural and sociopolitical issues of the 1960′s were addressed via the humanization of both the protagonistic X-Men, who were peaceful advocates for the (then-primarily racially coded) mutants’ integration and equality within a society that is terrified and disgusted by them, in contrast with the slowly developing and unexpected depth of character and humanization of the members of the Brotherhood of Mutants, who are constantly portrayed as an antagonistic but not wholly evil foil to the X-Men as a much more violent group of radicals with a more extreme and militant approach to gaining mutant’s rights (coded heavily at the time, of course, as the Black Panther Movement) which fought for an apartheid with a zealous “Mutant’s First” slogan, believing themselves superior to humans without the X-Gene. And because of the appropriately addressed and carefully handled themes, mutants occasionally even switched sides because after all, they were all fighting for mutant rights. Baring in mind the intricacies and mature themes of X-Men and the MCU’s masterfully sophisticated and tactfully manifold take on sexism which can be succinctly summarized as “WOMAN GOOD; MAN BAD” (which strikes me as particularly unusual narrative composition to frame the villain, who has assaulted a stranger and stolen his property because he gave her a cheesy pickup line that wasn’t particularly sexual or intimidating, as the hero of the story — clearly, if the Disney MCU is willing to create such an experimental piece of avant-garde cinema verité wherein the reality of a cruel, spiteful, and sadistic person is constantly thrust into the spotlight and incessantly touted as a heroic figure is put on display. None of this would have been possible, however, without a courageously flawless and unconventional choice to hire Brie Larson via the application of typage casting, allowing Boden and Fleck to shine a  b l a c k  m i r r o r , if you will allow me to be so edgy and bold as to use such a trite phrase in this post Netflix world, on our own flawed society, they will be capable of producing a mere three trivial films on something so relatively simplistic as translating the extremely volatile and divided zeitgeist of race relations in the height of the civil rights movement into a modern, appropriate, and respectful piece of representative fiction.

I’m sure Disney CEO Bob “Galaxy’s Edge Only Severely Underperformed Because People Were Worried There Would Be Too Many People There and This Has Nothing to Do With the Fact that I Thought My Dick Was Bigger Than It Actually Is and So I Thought I Could Get Away Without Marketing it Whatsoever Until Like 3 Months Before it Opened in Disneyland Because I Realized (but will never, ever admit) that I Fucked Up After they Low Crowds in Disney World and Over-Estimated the Current Value Of the Star Wars Brand After Green-Lighting A Film Wherein All the Original Characters Left Were Bastardized and Shat On So Now Everyone Who Wants to Watch TV Will Have A 35% Chance of Being Assaulted By Our Incessant Ads for this Bullshit Because I Bought a Bunch of Shit with No Creative Vision in Mind and Am So Incompetent and Think So Lowly of My Own Customer Base that I Signed Off on a Plan for This Park that Didn’t Include Most of the ‘Immersive Experience’ as Advertised Because I Truly Believe Most Consumers are So Stupid That They Will not Notice or Care that They’ve Paid ~$400-$500 per Person to Get Access to a Glorified Shopping Mall with Extremely Overpriced Toys that You Can’t Even Use within Park Grounds” Iger will make sure these concepts are addressed via internal, philosophical dilemmas such as “What level of respect do we owe to our oppressors?” and “How much humanity should we offer to those who don’t offer us the same courtesy in return?” that were written and drawn by a couple of Jewish WWII-Veterans who had fought violently on enemy soil for their right to live and be seen as human and were, twenty years later, observing an uprising against a disturbingly similar “Separate but Equal” system that was reminiscent of the insidious and dehumanizing relegation of German Jewish communities into ghettos implemented early during the Nazi regime. I’m just feeling so fucking positive about this Fox acquisition guys, because I’m just so sure somebody whose very goal is to buy up all his competition and suppress even the most constructive of criticism is truly concerned about honestly and properly representing a title with so many counter-cultural and anti-establishmentarian ideals that aren’t already commonly accepted in today’s political climate, right? At least we get the X-Men in the MCU, right gamers?!?!?!?!!!!!!

Regardless of how you feel about Disney, you can’t deny that the company’s board atm is entirely creatively bankrupt and out of touch. For god’s sake, they created a hyper-realistic CGI remake of The Lion King that perfectly represents the state of the Disney Corporation today: bland, boring, forgettable, and completely lacking in any sort of creative vision.

This makes my skin crawl

Hello there, fellow tumblrs!

I’m just gonna go out there and say this right now: I’m gonna rant about Cultural Appropriation and how stupid it is to think that it’s a hatecrime. So if you’re an SJW, just go ahead and read this, I don’t care what you think.

For starters, let’s get into who I am. I’m a white, cishet male from Sweden, with finnish and russian roots (The latter’s pretty far back though). With that out of the way, let’s get into why I think people going out and saying X Race can’t go wear Y Race’s Clothing and so on is a stupid and childish idea that should’ve been abolished long ago.

For those of you fortunate souls who have not heard of what Cultural Appropriation is, let me tell you what it means. It’s basically when members of one culture steals the traditions, foods and art from another culture and “Appropriates” it into their own. Pretty simple, yes? Well, not exactly. Because the SJW party, and anyone who really supports this idea of making it illegal is using the term wrongly, for starters. Just because I, a swedish, white man decide to dress up like a native american doesn’t mean I’m appropriating their culture. I’m not physically preventing them from wearing their clothing or practicing their beliefs. But that’s what the SJW’s want you to believe that you’re doing. In a sense, they want a sort of “Copyright” system for cultures and traditions, which is very hard to enforce.

Okay! Now you know what it is, and what it affects, let's take a look at how this would affect EVERYONE! And of course, why I think branding it as racist is the stupidest and most (ironically enough) racist fucking idea to ever grace tumblr, or whatever other places you may go to.

Let's play with the thought that for some reason this idea was accepted into an international sociey. Consuming basic things like Beer, Pasta, Thai Food and Saké  etc. would be considered to be xenophobic by SJW standards, which to me is a preposterous idea. I’m not taking these away from you by eating or drinking any of it, ye? I mean, you can drink just as much Saké as I can. Now taking or placing the credit on some other culture entirely can cause problems, that I will admit. Like saying for instance that Vodka comes from Germany, when it is in fact a Russian drink, to make a ludicrus example. THAT is actual appropriation. But if I sit down, and wear something non-religious, like say a kimono or get myself some sick dreadlocks or cornrows, that’s not appropriation, as I’m not claiming or taking it away from the culture it comes from. That’s me appreciating that culture, unless I’m really making a mockery out of it, I.E Making something similiar to that of a blackface about it. Then it’s racist.

Calling cultural sharing racist is a silly notion. We’re all humans, in the end. We are all the same, regardless of where we are from, or where we go. If I wanna go dress like an ancient egyptian pharaoh for halloween, let me do so without screeching like a god damn harpy. I’m not doing it to be mean. I’m doing so because it’s a cool and creepy aesthetic which works very well for a halloween atmosphere. An ancient, mummified royal sounds pretty interesting and cool to me. I love the egyptian history, as it’s so rich and different from the culture of Surströmming (which is fucking disgusting, may I add) Kräftskivor and so on that I grew up with. Is it so wrong to reach out and try new things, if only for just a little bit? I love Thai food, I love Pasta and Babootie (That’s a south-african dish, by the way. Freaking amazing stuff. Try it out.) I’m not gonna throw a hissyfit because people wanna dress up as Vikings for some holiday or wear Thor’s hammer as a piece of Jewelry.  

And don't come and say that Whites have no culture. We have a very rich culture spread across multiple countries in Europe. I've already stated a bunch of examples of white culture above. Scottish garb, beer, wine, rum, vodka, knighthood, classic fantasy, sci-fi, the foundations of your liberalist ideas come from France even for christ’s sake. The list goes on and on! And before you say that white cultures can't be appropriated, you blatantly stand by that disgusting double standard that it only applies when whites does it, and no one else. White cultures have been oppressed in the past (Sure, by other whites, but oppressed nontheless) but that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist or hasn't existed in the past. Want a current day example? Look at Ireland. It's arguably one of the most oppressed white societies in modern day. Want something less recent? Look at the Nazi Holocaust. Jews were being hunted like animals and put into slave camps. I am pretty sure that whatever oppression your race has been through, it's not been NEARLY as bad as what the jews have gone through over the millenia. And they are white... for the most part anyway. Now, if some of you out there want to adopt some scandinavian viking culture, go ahead. I'm not gonna be offended if you wanna drink mead or dress up like a lanky, black viking, or what have you. And you shouldn't be offended either when someone respectfully dresses up in your culture's clothing, or eats traditional food which has it's origins from wherever else. It's childish and stupid. You're getting angry over something that should be positive. Making the world more aware of what other cultures bring only makes us less racist. By separating cultures from oneanother, we’ll only breed more xenophobia. The less we have to do with eachother, the more we’ll start to resent oneanother. Of course, there are other causes for racist and fascist behaviours than just being separated from another culture.

But here’s a good example of how a racist mind could be born. Let’s say for instance that you live in a society where just recently some green-skinned humanoids immigrate. You’ve had absolutely zero interaction or experience with them before. And the first thing you see is one of them robbing and stabbing one of your own before running away. The Human brain likes to put things into categories, or stereotypes for easier management. That way, when you see something new, you make a new “file” which you can easily access later with information you’ve gathered regarding this paticular subject. This very fact has been proven several times in psychological studies. So after seeing this man commit this crime, you, subconsciously, start to think that perhaps all green-skinned men are somewhat into crimminal behaviour. This isn’t necessarily true, but since you have only this bit of experience with this alien race, you of course start treating them according to your experience. It’s not that hard to grasp, really.

So, the main cause for racism is indeed ignorance. Ignorance we would breed by separating us from oneanother, and only hanging out with our own. Why do you think the whites saw themselves as superior to the other races when we first met? Because our culture at that stage was more advanced and perhaps civilized due to the opportunities we’ve had, that others may have lacked. We didn’t know much about these new people and as such, we began to think that we were superior, and started bossing around with the poor blacks, which was a horrible thing to do.

If any form of Cultural Appropriation became a punishable crime worldwide, it would have the REVERSE effect of what you self-proclaimed ”Social Justice Warriors” want. Because with that, you would create “Culturally Isolated” societies, where eventually people would get racist. I get it, I get where you want this to go. A Racist-free society, yeah? Well, Racial and Cultural segregation is not the way to go. As I discussed earlier, racism is grounded in ignorance and fear of another race, which gives birth to the hate and what have you. If we shut cultures away from eachother, it would only reinforce that fear and ignorance, which is not what we want, yes? So why not open our doors instead, let people in and allow them to understand why your culture dresses up the way they do, why it's food is so significant... Our international society would be so much healthier if we could all just embrace our differences and allow anyone to partake in whatever they want, so long as it's not Physically or economically hurting someone else. I'm sorry if your feelings are hurt, but this bullshit makes my skin crawl. I hate having people tell me what I can and cannot do because of my skin color, sexual orientation or gender. And so should you.

And that's why I think treating Cultural Appropriation as racism is stupid. I don’t see any racists indulging in other cultures. Do you? Did the KKK have dreadlocks? Do white supremacists wear Burkas? NO! They pushed away that, because it belonged to a culture they hated and believed themselves to be superior to. Appropriating another culture isn’t racism. It’s preventing that racism.