Did Tim Walz effectively utilize dad coding when he repeatedly and preemptively deployed a military force to intimidate unarmed black people for protesting police murders?

...is that what people think happened? That he just deployed the military in 2020 to intimidate people?

On the day after George Floyd's murder when the news broke about George Floyd (May 26th), Tim Walz denounced the killing and said that they would be seeking answers and justice. Protests started almost immediately, and protesters got antagonised by police into a riot just as quickly.

May 28th, a police precinct was caught on fire. Fires that large have a bad habit of spreading to nearby buildings when fire fighters are able to get to the fire quickly let alone when the way is blocked by protestors a minority of whom are bound to be trying to cause more chaos and spreading the fire on purpose. These fires spread to many buildings including small local black owned businesses.

On May 29th, Tim Walz put out executive order 20-65, deploying the national guard. In his executive order, he cites specifically that the protests had been peaceful and that they are important and a backbone of our society, but that due to the violence and arson (specifically citing the black-owned businesses that were destroyed) that occurred, public safety was at risk. He also in that order implemented a curfew. May 30th, he put out another executive order authorising offered neighbouring emergency personnel to assist cross-borders.

He extended the curfew on the 31st as that was the date the first one was set to expire and the riots were still active and ongoing. This was reextended multiple times each time it was set to expire. The last of which expired June 5th.

On June 2nd, a credit threat was made that the protests that were occurring in Fargo, North Dakota should spill over into neighboring areas. This included Clay County, MN, a small county with a too small police force to hand any kind of large scale protests, along with other areas like Wahpeton, ND. Clay County made Walz aware of this and that state troopers were also too busy with the other protests in the area to assist. So Walz deployed the national guard once again.

That is the totality of what Tim Walz did in terms of deploying the national guard.

Following this, on June 10th 2020, he convened a special legislative session focused on passing a police reform and accountability bill. A bill was passed as a result on July 21st. It banned chokeholds in most cases, increased accountability measures, mandated police training for responses to mental health related calls, and created a centalized database for police misconduct, to prevent police from just transferring jurisdictions to avoid accountability, and many other things. In response to passing this bill, Tim Walz explicitly stated that it's not enough and more needs to be done.

Say what you want about the fact that the only response available in this country to unarmed protestors being antagonised by police into harming each other is to deploy a military force, but do not pretend it was preemptive, repeated, or meant to intimidate people out of protesting.

And for anyone who still thinks that he was wrong for deploying the national guard, I want you to tell me what you would do in his position when thousands of people have just been radicalized into destroying property and ruining people's lives in the name of a dead black man who can't denounce their violence, when you know that the police in the area are the cause and will make everything worse, without breaking any laws yourself. Disbanding the police department is not a power that you have. How do you stop the active violence happening with as few repercussions as possible?

Please keep sucking that national guard boot even harder. The fact that you’re concern trolling 4 years after the fact about “people radicalized into destroying property” is enough to conclude that you’re a reactionary who shouldn’t be taken seriously

Where the fuck am doing any of that? I literally tried to make it clear that it sucks that this country doesn't have a better alternative. I in no way am "concern trolling" about "people radicalised into destroying property". Stop acting like a damn russian bot and answer the question I asked. What do you think he should have done instead to stop the active violence that was happening? This isn't a fucking joke. This was real people's lives. I know, I was in the goddamn riots and protests that year helping people get the medical attention they needed because of the sheer levels of violence that were happening on both sides. Ultimately, the cause is the police and they should have been help accountable for their actions. But saying that doesn't stop the angry rioters from causing more unnecessary damage to both property and people. Once that starts, it's incredibly hard to stop.

Doing literally nothing would’ve been better than sending in the national guard. Genuinely. Sending them in didn’t stop the violence, the violence applied to the black community of Minneapolis far predated those protests, you just only think it’s violence when it’s not the national guard doing it. You’re really not even worth responding to though, since your first instinct was to call me a “Russian bot”. If you dehumanize the person you’re talking to, they aren’t going to respond kindly

My god. I also call it violence when its the national guard doing it. And thanks for the response, doing nothing would have made everything worse. The police were actively exacerbating the problem and would have continued to until every rioter was either dead or in jail or too afraid or injured to continue. I can tell you have never worked in crowd management from your incredibly flippant answer.

Being told to stop acting like a russian bot is not dehumanizing you. It's telling you that your actions do not make sense and are pointlessly aggravating, and designed to cause infighting for the benefit of no one involved. Ya know, like the russian bots did.

But you are right about 1 thing. If you're a dick to someone (including by dehumanizing them), they aren't going to respond kindly. Hence why I am not responding kindly to you. Good bye

Lmao I know you weren't actually there because you think the national guard protected people from the cops

I do not. I think the national guard is trained on de-escalation and also meant more oversight on the situation because there are actual accountability laws for military members unlike the police. The national guard is not good to call on unarmed civilians, but if a member of the national guard kills an unarmed civilian, there is way more consequences that will happen to them than to any member of the police doing the same thing. The national guard can and has caused so many problems when called to the scene of a peaceful protest, but they at least get court marshalled when one of those protestors die. They also weren't directly related to the incident unlike the Minneapolis police department. They didn't have any skin in the game.

So no, they weren't protecting people from the police. They were there to de-escalate both sides, which yes, means they absolutely were against the protestors there and that is a problem. Like I said before it really sucks that there isn't a better option

They escalated everything! They enabled the cops to the fullest! Come on this is ridiculous. You keep trying to say you were there, but I actually was and you could not be describing a situation further from reality.

Yeah I know that they ended up escalating things. Im fully aware that ultimately it was worse. That does not mean that the decision was incorrect when he made it with the information that was available. You don't seem to understand how decisions are made as a government official.

Anyways, you are trying to distract from the point and shift goalposts. The point of my reply was not that "the national guard being deployed is good actually", it was that "Tim Walz did not repeatedly and preemptively deploy a military force to intimidate unarmed black people for protesting police murders". Ive proven that and cited sources too. Im done defending my speech patterns to you.

Anyone who donated to AO3 should donate to those striking rn

fic writers and readers are mostly ppl exploited and demonized by companies, who strongly support the strikes. AO3 is a communalist nonprofit with no owner, dedicated to free writing. What part of that screams "doesn't support strikers"? I know AO3 donators who are, you know, Starbucks baristas. And television writers.

is this a "everyone I don't like is a privileged cishet white person philosophically opposed to anything I approve of" or...

Or, or, hear me out..... you could donate directly toward the strike and those who strike, and not AO3

The false dichotomy is so weird. I use my money in lots of frivolous ways, but it's donating to a service I use for my creative endeavors (at one point while it was under attack by purported homophobes who wanted it closed down because of gay writing) that is taking money out of the mouths of striking writers?

wouldn't this energy be of better use going after the money going to Netflix subscriptions, or Barbie tickets, than a service I know for a fact that the striking workers use?

which, of course, also makes the unnecessary and kind of dumb assumption that ppl donating to AO3 haven't donated to strike funds. Which. Uh. Lol?

You can also donate to the Internet Archive, where AO3 fanfics can be saved and read

The IA and AO3 are doing different things lol wut. AO3 has award-winning metadata designed specifically as a nonprofit fiction and fandom archive. The Internet Archive is an attempt to archive all media as comprehensively as possible. Pitting two bad bitches against each other.

I get it, you think a free archive without advertisements or beholden to VC or owners, with 4 million users and 11 million works, which was the focus of a homophobic hacking attempt doesn’t deserve donations. And you will measure it against any other type of donation drive, no matter how apples-to-oranges the comparison, or how obvious it is that AO3 users do support it.

just admit that and quit acting like ppl donating to AO3 want workers to starve. (It’s us. AO3 donators are part of the striking groups and other workers whose bosses are exploiting them)

No ones called for a boycott thats why no ones unsubscribing to those services (unless osmething changed recently i didnt know about). i dont even use streaming services yar har fiddley dee.

the idea is more so is getting your priorities straight, all that money rossed at AO3 and none of that previous money went to proper security? plus no one who writes on ao3 is getting that money either otherwised they woudknt be e-begging. or striking.

I mean, clearly you think literally anything should take priority over donating to AO3-- you've jumped from "strike funds" to "e-beggars" (lol you mean "individuals"), to Internet Archive. You won't suggest people cancel their streaming or give up their movie tickets and donate those. Just the free fandom archive you have a personal distaste for.

No one called for a boycott of the free service that people use to publish their free hobby fiction that is intended to be free, either. The money goes to keeping the service running. If you really think a free, non-corporate art archive that working class people actually use pretty regularly (I was using it as a Starbucks barista!) can't be one of many people's priorities because they use the service, you are stupid.

yall are very obsssesed with the funny fanfic web site i wosh that energy was aimed toward like uuuuh

me, an artist you all care for so much, someone who doesnt get moeny from AO3

#id love to receive like half the money ao3 gets lol

Well, make a website that has 4 million users globally, hosting 11 million works, while not taking money from venture capital, corporations, or ads. If it's so easy and cheap and all.

I'm sorry you don't make any money from the free nonprofit website for free gay hobby art 🤷🏽‍♂️ do something productive

Just to weigh in on the comment about “proper security :( :( :(“ above, we’ve seen multiple large corporate websites with much larger budgets than AO3 get DDOS’d offline in the past couple of years. The ability to withstand a DDOS attack has a lot less to do with computer security (as in the preventing intrusion/hacker voice “I’m in”) and a lot more with paying Cloudflare or having a large enough (tech giant sized) network to support it.

I don’t know what this person’s issue is with AO3 or why they feel entitled to tell other people how to spend their money, but I’m not a fan of leaving ridiculously false statements uncorrected.

i like poking fun of the fanfic web site sometimes

"Do something productive" yall love saying towards the fanfic writers/creatives that write this shit for free

/stares in “100+ fics on AO3”

Do something more productive than complaining about ppl donating to the wrong cause

id love to receive the amount of money AO3 gets overnight

Well, make a website that has 4 million users globally, hosting 11 million works, while not taking money from venture capital, corporations, or ads. If it's so easy and cheap and all.

id love to receive the amount of money AO3 gets overnight

I'm sure you would, unfortunately, you appear to have nothing worthwhile to contribute

id love to receive the amount of money AO3 gets overnight

Me too, bitch, you ain’t special. So what

and the blorbos on ao3 are?

servers cost money, babe. Ppl want the servers to continue to work. Because it’s a service they use.

i ppost my art all the time i tsill dont got the money ao3 gets overnight

Your art is not a service being used by four million other artists, babe.

Even if i were to post it on AO3? 🥺

I'm sorry you're too dumb to understand the difference between a free service being offered for millions of ppl to host their own hobby art, and your individual and probably terrible art pieces that you want to sell. But that's a You Problem.

oh i know my arts bad, but thats irrelevant cus a lot of shit on ao3 is pretty bad too, yall aint shakespear now. if yall were you wouldnt be writing 100+ fics on ao3.

I strive to improve my art, you know what could help improve my art and shut me up? receiving the kind of money AO3 gets overnight whenever it breaks a nail

@ryuutchi why do you talk like light yagami

Yeah I'm not taking any criticism about how I type from you, cap

hey i might type like shit but at least i can have friends and normal interactions w/o the fact that i support a zionist website that hosts pedo content living rent free in my head n pockets

get well soon <3

Nah, you just sound like a conservative, throwing pedo libel and whatever else you think sounds bad and immoral at strangers. Thankfully, I have friends and normal interactions in the fan community that supports queer art even when randos whine about it.

grow up 🙏🏼

ryuutchi shut the fuck up on my post have you donated to anything that isnt AO3 since I made this post?

quite a lot, thanks for asking :)

You've reminded me I wanted to donate to AO3 before the elections, tho, thanks for that too

imagine donating to ao3 before elections instead of people being affected by the elections good grief

"people being affected by the elections" lol you know I meant the AO3 elections , because I want to vote on the nonprofit board, and not a national election, right

man you are DUMB

is it really me being dumb to mistake ao3 elections for the real ones cus like i don't soend my entire life and time and money on fanfic, especially a fanfic site?

like that shit is literally unheard outside the internet my guy sorry for the easy misunderstanding i guess

wanna know how i would be able to know more about dumb shit like that and avoid making a mistake like that again? having 880k in my bank account over night.

you're mad because AO3 provides a useful service and people are willing to pay for that useful service. lol Get a useful skill instead of whining on the internet and maybe you'll have more money 🤷🏽‍♂️

that is a mad conservative thing to say my guy.

you know how I can do that? if i (and many others) was given 880k overnight.

At this point, your failure to understand the concept that "people are donating to a service they use, for use in the continuation of the service" is obvious bad faith. No person is being given 880k, a bunch of people are giving 10 bucks to a nonprofit running a service that they use. Like when I also donate to Wikipedia or Internet Archive except you have a bizarre bone to pick.

End of.

End of nothing, my mans cant even donate to a food not bombs for the vine, chat. cant even do it to prove me wrong.

fascinating bad faith assumption

it iis good to donate to IA, you made a big stink about the fact i said you ought to put more effort into stuff like IA and wikipedia. and with 880k overnight for fanfiction of all things the goalpost keeps moving cus omg 880k overnight dude thats almost a million dollar wish all that effort went to IA and Wikipedia your wittle $10 you split into $5 for each site, but $700-2000 for fanfic is showing absolutely abysmal priorities

700-2k per individual is like 400 people pitching in for 880k, like me ksaying 800k ppl donated 1 dollar to ao3 sounded more generous legit me being nice about yall for ince but yall really out here with mad cash throwing it in a furnace when it could lkke idk go tk IA Wikipedia an IWW an individual (which in that case that 880k maybe even more than half that goes back into the economy and not sitting in AO3s vault of What if scenarios)

a fascinatingly bad faith take to see me say "I donated as much to Wikipedia and IA" and assume that's "combined" and not "equally as much to each" lol

It's also fascinating bad faith faux-lack of comprehension to just ignore the truth that a site with 4 million users has 150k people giving them 5-10 bucks once a year. You have to make up bizarre numbers (700? lol) to justify your anger that a hundred thousand people chip in a little once a year for a nonprofit whose service they and millions of other people use, because you hate what that nonprofit is willing to host and you're personally broke.

Bruh A03 hate brainrot goes wild 💀

oh gaaaaawd whatever happened to dont lkke dont reeeaaaad ugh the nerve of fandoms these days

Bestie you're the one that went on and on about a strawman against random internet strangers 😭 you can't claim to not be the one who was pressed here.

OP didn't even tag this

Meaning yall just jumped in all on your own just to be mad that someone said art creators deserve this money for

And yall arguing in defense of a zionist ontop of that

Edit: Your ass a zionist too, gotdamn yall tell on yourselves

Anyone who donated to AO3 should donate to those striking rn

fic writers and readers are mostly ppl exploited and demonized by companies, who strongly support the strikes. AO3 is a communalist nonprofit with no owner, dedicated to free writing. What part of that screams "doesn't support strikers"? I know AO3 donators who are, you know, Starbucks baristas. And television writers.

is this a "everyone I don't like is a privileged cishet white person philosophically opposed to anything I approve of" or...

Or, or, hear me out..... you could donate directly toward the strike and those who strike, and not AO3

The false dichotomy is so weird. I use my money in lots of frivolous ways, but it's donating to a service I use for my creative endeavors (at one point while it was under attack by purported homophobes who wanted it closed down because of gay writing) that is taking money out of the mouths of striking writers?

wouldn't this energy be of better use going after the money going to Netflix subscriptions, or Barbie tickets, than a service I know for a fact that the striking workers use?

which, of course, also makes the unnecessary and kind of dumb assumption that ppl donating to AO3 haven't donated to strike funds. Which. Uh. Lol?

You can also donate to the Internet Archive, where AO3 fanfics can be saved and read

The IA and AO3 are doing different things lol wut. AO3 has award-winning metadata designed specifically as a nonprofit fiction and fandom archive. The Internet Archive is an attempt to archive all media as comprehensively as possible. Pitting two bad bitches against each other.

I get it, you think a free archive without advertisements or beholden to VC or owners, with 4 million users and 11 million works, which was the focus of a homophobic hacking attempt doesn’t deserve donations. And you will measure it against any other type of donation drive, no matter how apples-to-oranges the comparison, or how obvious it is that AO3 users do support it.

just admit that and quit acting like ppl donating to AO3 want workers to starve. (It’s us. AO3 donators are part of the striking groups and other workers whose bosses are exploiting them)

No ones called for a boycott thats why no ones unsubscribing to those services (unless osmething changed recently i didnt know about). i dont even use streaming services yar har fiddley dee.

the idea is more so is getting your priorities straight, all that money rossed at AO3 and none of that previous money went to proper security? plus no one who writes on ao3 is getting that money either otherwised they woudknt be e-begging. or striking.

I mean, clearly you think literally anything should take priority over donating to AO3-- you've jumped from "strike funds" to "e-beggars" (lol you mean "individuals"), to Internet Archive. You won't suggest people cancel their streaming or give up their movie tickets and donate those. Just the free fandom archive you have a personal distaste for.

No one called for a boycott of the free service that people use to publish their free hobby fiction that is intended to be free, either. The money goes to keeping the service running. If you really think a free, non-corporate art archive that working class people actually use pretty regularly (I was using it as a Starbucks barista!) can't be one of many people's priorities because they use the service, you are stupid.

yall are very obsssesed with the funny fanfic web site i wosh that energy was aimed toward like uuuuh

me, an artist you all care for so much, someone who doesnt get moeny from AO3

#id love to receive like half the money ao3 gets lol

Well, make a website that has 4 million users globally, hosting 11 million works, while not taking money from venture capital, corporations, or ads. If it's so easy and cheap and all.

I'm sorry you don't make any money from the free nonprofit website for free gay hobby art 🤷🏽‍♂️ do something productive

Just to weigh in on the comment about “proper security :( :( :(“ above, we’ve seen multiple large corporate websites with much larger budgets than AO3 get DDOS’d offline in the past couple of years. The ability to withstand a DDOS attack has a lot less to do with computer security (as in the preventing intrusion/hacker voice “I’m in”) and a lot more with paying Cloudflare or having a large enough (tech giant sized) network to support it.

I don’t know what this person’s issue is with AO3 or why they feel entitled to tell other people how to spend their money, but I’m not a fan of leaving ridiculously false statements uncorrected.

i like poking fun of the fanfic web site sometimes

"Do something productive" yall love saying towards the fanfic writers/creatives that write this shit for free

/stares in “100+ fics on AO3”

Do something more productive than complaining about ppl donating to the wrong cause

id love to receive the amount of money AO3 gets overnight

Well, make a website that has 4 million users globally, hosting 11 million works, while not taking money from venture capital, corporations, or ads. If it's so easy and cheap and all.

id love to receive the amount of money AO3 gets overnight

I'm sure you would, unfortunately, you appear to have nothing worthwhile to contribute

id love to receive the amount of money AO3 gets overnight

Me too, bitch, you ain’t special. So what

and the blorbos on ao3 are?

servers cost money, babe. Ppl want the servers to continue to work. Because it’s a service they use.

i ppost my art all the time i tsill dont got the money ao3 gets overnight

Your art is not a service being used by four million other artists, babe.

Even if i were to post it on AO3? 🥺

I'm sorry you're too dumb to understand the difference between a free service being offered for millions of ppl to host their own hobby art, and your individual and probably terrible art pieces that you want to sell. But that's a You Problem.

oh i know my arts bad, but thats irrelevant cus a lot of shit on ao3 is pretty bad too, yall aint shakespear now. if yall were you wouldnt be writing 100+ fics on ao3.

I strive to improve my art, you know what could help improve my art and shut me up? receiving the kind of money AO3 gets overnight whenever it breaks a nail

@ryuutchi why do you talk like light yagami

Yeah I'm not taking any criticism about how I type from you, cap

hey i might type like shit but at least i can have friends and normal interactions w/o the fact that i support a zionist website that hosts pedo content living rent free in my head n pockets

get well soon <3

Nah, you just sound like a conservative, throwing pedo libel and whatever else you think sounds bad and immoral at strangers. Thankfully, I have friends and normal interactions in the fan community that supports queer art even when randos whine about it.

grow up 🙏🏼

ryuutchi shut the fuck up on my post have you donated to anything that isnt AO3 since I made this post?

quite a lot, thanks for asking :)

You've reminded me I wanted to donate to AO3 before the elections, tho, thanks for that too

imagine donating to ao3 before elections instead of people being affected by the elections good grief

"people being affected by the elections" lol you know I meant the AO3 elections , because I want to vote on the nonprofit board, and not a national election, right

man you are DUMB

is it really me being dumb to mistake ao3 elections for the real ones cus like i don't soend my entire life and time and money on fanfic, especially a fanfic site?

like that shit is literally unheard outside the internet my guy sorry for the easy misunderstanding i guess

wanna know how i would be able to know more about dumb shit like that and avoid making a mistake like that again? having 880k in my bank account over night.

you're mad because AO3 provides a useful service and people are willing to pay for that useful service. lol Get a useful skill instead of whining on the internet and maybe you'll have more money 🤷🏽‍♂️

apparently not patient enough to make your own post on your own blog

how's about you and your friends prove me wrong and show me yall are capable of caring about things outside the fanfic sphere and send 880k to like a food not bombs overnight or something

Yeah, I'm not arguing with you because you literally are being an asshole. @ryuutchi has more patience for bullshit than I do and I'm just not having your shitty crybaby wah wah. It's none of your business what people do with their money, for one thing. For another, the amount of money people I know donate is less than we used to spend to host our own websites and amounts to maybe a cup of coffee every month. Just because we as users of a not for profit website send them the occasional $5 shouldn't get your panties in this kind of twist.

That sure was a lot of crying over a Zionist that talks like Light Yagami

So a few months ago there was the discourse about would you rather meet a man or a bear in the woods. I didn't want to touch it while the discourse was hot and everyone dug in hard because those are not good conditions for nuance, but I waited until today, June 1st, for a specific reason.

I'm not going to take a position in the bear vs man debate because I don't think it matters. What is really being asked here is how afraid are you of men? Specifically, unexpected men who are, perhaps, strange.

People have a lot of very real fear of men that comes from a lot of very real places. Back when I was first transitioning in 2015 and 2016, I decided to start presenting as a woman in public even though I did not pass in the slightest.

I live in a red state. I knew other trans women who had been attacked by men, raped by men. I knew I was taking a risk by putting myself out there. I was the only visibly trans person in the area of campus I frequented, and people made sure I never forgot that. Most were harmless enough and the worst I got from them was curious stares. Others were more aggressive, even the occasional threat. I had to avoid public bathrooms, of course, and always be aware of my surroundings.

I know how frightening it is to be alone at night while a pair of men are following behind you and not knowing if they are just going in the same direction or if they want to start something - made all the worse for the constant low level threat I had been living under for over a year by just being visibly trans in a place where many are openly hostile to queer people. You have to remember, this was at the height of the first wave of bathroom law discussions, a lot of people were very angry about trans women in particular. My daily life was terrifying at times. I was never the subject of direct violence, but I knew trans women who had been.

I want you to keep all that in mind.

So man or bear is really the question "how afraid of men are you?", and the question that logically follows is "What if there was a strange man at night in a deserted parking lot?" or "What if you were alone in an elevator with a man?" or "What if you met a strange man in the woman's bathroom?"

My state recently passed an anti trans bathroom bill. The rhetoric they used was about protecting women and children from "strange men", aka trans women.

Conservatives hijack fear for their bigoted agenda.

When I first started presenting as a woman the campus apartment complex was designed for young families. The buildings were in a large square with playgrounds in the center, and there were often children playing. I quickly noticed that when I took my daughter out to play, often several children would immediately stop what they were doing and run back inside. It didn't take me long to confirm that the parents were so afraid of "the strange man who wears skirts" that their children were under strict instructions to literally run away as soon as they saw me.

"How afraid are you of a strange man being near your children?"

I mentioned above that I had to avoid public bathrooms. This was not because of men. It was because of women who were so afraid of random men that they might get violent or call someone like the police to be violent for them if I ever accidentally presented myself in a way that could be interpreted as threatening, when my mere presence could be seen as a threat. If I was in the library studying and I realized that it was just me and one other woman I would get up and leave because she might decide that stranger danger was happening.

Your fear is real. Your fear might even come from lived experiences. None of that prevents the fact that your fear can be violent. Women's fear of men is one of the driving forces of transmisogyny because it is so easy to hijack. And it isn't just trans women. Other trans people experience this, and other queer people too. Racial minorities, homeless people, neurodivergent people, disabled people.

When you uncritically engage with questions like man or bear, when you uncritically validate a culture of reactive fear, you are paving the way for conservatives and bigots to push their agenda. And that is why I waited until pride month. You cannot engage and contribute to the culture of reactive fear without contributing to queerphobia of all varieties. The sensationalist culture of reactive fear is a serious queer issue, and everyone just forgot that for a week as they argued over man or bear. I'm not saying that "man" is the right answer. I am saying that uncritically engaging with such obvious click bait trading on reactive fear is a problem. Everyone fucked up.

It is not a moral failing to experience fear, but it is a moral responsibility to keep a handle on that fear and know how it might harm others.

The terfs are big mad about this post. Normally wouldn't acknowledge it, but one of them said something interesting. Basically, they said that this was denying women their "survival instincts", which I find a very interesting way to put it because survival instincts are about action, not just the feeling of fear.

I want to highlight the core principles of what I actually said:

That is the core. That is what any decent person should agree to and keep in mind. I never said you should not act on your survival instincts. I actually listed a couple ways I did myself, such as avoiding bathrooms and removing myself from situations where others might perceive me as a threat.

This isn't just a trans woman issue, as I said in the post proper. I came at it from that angle because that is my experience, but this is an issue for a number of groups, practically every marginalized group that exists. The one I had in mind and that has been mentioned several times in the notes of this post is how white women's fear has been weaponized against black men. Really all black people, but since we are talking about fear of men specifically, I'm going to look at it from that angle.

Even if you hate trans women, even if somehow that were the correct position, the two core points still stand. Your fear can be violent, and you have a moral responsibility to be cognizant of that fact. How could your unchecked "survival instincts" hurt a black man? If you are not asking yourself this question then there is a problem.

But radical feminsists are offended by the idea that a woman has a responsibility to not cause harm with their unchecked survival instincts. This is one of the major reasons the original radical feminist movements were so incredibly racist. Sharing a space with a brown woman made them afraid. Kicking out all the brown women was in accordance with their survival instincts.

Now more recent rad fems will claim racial inclusivity and I am sure they believe it, but they still object to the idea that their fear can be harmful and refuse to take responsibility for their actions. That is a racist position because it will cause harm.

I know this is not exactly a revelation, but it is rare to see it so cleanly demonstrated.

"I can tell the difference between a cis man and trans people"

"I can tell the difference between a cis man and women of color"

"I can tell when a man is smiling at me for creepy reasons and a man smiling at me because he's neurodivergent"

And yet, yall don't

Not so gentle reminder, that you’re going to have to stop drinking Starbucks and eating McDonald’s pretty much forever if this is actually going to work. The Montgomery bus boycott lasted for over a year. That means that people walked everywhere for over a year. This is going to require sacrifice. And I promise you it will work in the long run, especially as more people come on board, but this cannot just be a trend. Your resistance Hass to be continual and I know for me, every time I am further radicalized, I change the way I interact with the world and this is a beautiful time to think about changing the way you interact with the world 

Am think this part important for sustain any boycott - not just fast foods ones, then:

If we gonna use Montgomery bus boycott as example successful long-term boycotting, then we gonna need learn from it n apply part of what work back in u.s. black civil rights movement - to our modern situation n political organizing n boycotts.

Particularly, we need highlight the organized + mutual aid + community aspect that made it much easier n sustainable boycott racist public n private transport systems by all sorts people.

Basically, not everyone just walked. They found practical alternatives.

They found the root of what necessity those racist public transport provided / were suppose to provide:

-getting to work on time n not getting fired (important for income n financial stability)

- transport for people without private cars

- getting to important appointments n necessaries (including medical n health emergencies), n moving around city

- going places people can't practically go each time on foot, including people that can't do that

Then: they helped each other, made their own transport networks, contacted each other, and made connected organized groups.

If everyone just walked, then the boycott would not have been sustainable for long.

- A lot more Black people would lose jobs en masse when employers were looking for any excuse fire them.

- Black disabled n sick n those with medical emergencies woulda died even more than already.

- only those able walk long distance or for consistent time, n without accidents - would be able actual get to places. It was over year long boycott.

A lot people would have caved in, n resorted to the boycotted transport systems very early on without alternative.

"The Montgomery bus boycott, which lasted 381 days, demonstrated growing resistance to segregation. [...]

For activists in Montgomery, maintaining the boycott posed a challenge: how to secure needed mobility without riding buses? Walking remained an option, but not for the elderly and infirm and people living in remote locations. Taxi services were more expensive, regulated, and subject to police harassment. And buying a car remained outside many people’s budgets. But helping friends get to work or to the store remained legal.

Even in Montgomery, enough African Americans owned private automobiles to ensure that people’s vital transportation needs were met. Neighbors organized carpools and shared phone contacts to address unanticipated needs, such as having to take someone to the hospital. All these complex coordination tasks were achieved over the year-plus boycott, while the costs to the city steadily mounted.

[...] Church-operated station wagons known as ‘rolling churches’ met people at designated pick-up points. Black-owned taxis and private cars were quickly organized into a system of alternate transportation. [...]"

- "How Cars Saved The Montgomery Bus Boycott" by Fred Smith, Forbes.

(Though article tries frame it as a win for capitalism. No.)

Not only they did alternative transport, made own intricate system, assist each other, n made own black businesses out of it -- they also fed each other n found ways to fund the boycotts n alternative businesses through other means.

In a sense, they funelled money back into black community n found ways for different members contribute or participate (black women, elderly, disabled, etc)

" [Georgia] Gilmore organized black women to sell pound cakes and sweet potato pies, fried fish and stewed greens, pork chops and rice at beauty salons, cab stands and churches. 'She offered these women, many of whose grandmothers were born into slavery, a way to contribute to the cause that would not raise suspicions of white employers who might fire them from their jobs, or white landowners who might evict them from the houses they rented,' Edge says.

The money they raised helped pay for the alternative transportation system that arose in Montgomery during the 381-day bus boycott: hundreds of cars, trucks and wagons that ferried black workers to and from their jobs across town each day. Gilmore's cooking helped pay for the insurance, gas, wagons and vehicle repairs that kept that system going."

- "Meet The Cook Who Secretly Fed And Funded The Civile Rights Movement" by Maria Godo, NPR

(Am use basic articles n links cuz am on mobile, but at same time wanted show there some basis on what am say - but this so surface level)

Okay, that review is all well n good, but what point am try make?

Even in superfluous, less important looking businesses n services being boycott -

we need acknowledge what purpose n role those product n service have, n how to completely replace them. Not just take them away n leave a void. Replace. Completely.

We also shouldn't use people that have never use those service as example as how it possible avoid. We are *boycotting* -meaning people that *use to use something* won't anymore.

Fast food?

"Supposed" Purpose:

- For people that need food... fast.

- Those who can't or don't have time, ability, resource, ingredients, tools / home, energy - to cook.

- is what food available in food deserts full of fast food.

- ""affordable""

Alternatives:

- most local food places

- neighbors n family's cooking

- home cooking for thos able to (not everyone)

Community n Connection:

- connecting n contacting those that cannot cook or need food fast (including disabled)

- making new n supporting existing food business that funnel back into the cause

- contributing to funds for people get groceries n non-fast foods

- making easier know accessible cooking guides n suggestions to those that can cook n have time to

- Educate on alternatives n how-to-cook for people beginning learn to

- Connect to grassroots organizations n plan boycotts on local levels as well.

For other types boycotts, the same principle apply:

- find the purpose the service or product supposed have

- make alternatives that actual work to replace that purpose

- connect & community

- backup plan

- organize as group

- find a way funnel back into the cause

- check what type boycott it is, how it connect to global boycotts n other orgs, n what the goal is (example: have company backoff from contribute occupation or segregation law. Or have company retract support. Or company go bankrupt. Or get media attention to an issue. Maybe multiple.)

The key is to sustain. For real. N make practical n achievable beyond. Loose untargetted unorganized boycotts are weak strategy for global long-term types.

Learn from past n apply to future, strategically.

the actor playing sokka in the live action avatar: the last airbender show is white and pretending to be indigenous

[ID: a tweet by Zay @/JonnsChocos that reads: “The way everyone was praising the Netflix Avatar series for not whitewashing the characters and now it’s revealed Sokka’s actor is actually white and is just pretending to be indigenous just so he could get the role.”

a quote tweet by “Indi Tan -@/DiceComics” @/itsmrmask from 16 Jan 2022 that reads: “Ian Ousley. the actor cast to play Sokka in Netflix’s "authentic, diverse” live action Avatar the Last Airbender series is enrolled in a fake tribe. Ousley is from a Trump-supporting family and the thread has evidence his family paid a fake registrar to list them as Cherokee.“ The original tweet is shown below in the next image.

the original tweet by "7 gen voices” @/7genvoices from 10 Jan 2022 that reads: “just in! Proof Ian Ousley (Sokka) is enrolled in a fake tribe and not cherokee (continued on next)” attached are several emails and documents. They have not been shown in full in the screenshots. The first email reads: “Good afternoon, a response letter is attached. We have no record of Mr. Ousley or of the Southern Cherokee Nation of Kentucky.” The next is of a document, that appears to be the response letter mentioned, that confirms Ian Ousley is not enrolled in a real tribe. The next email is from the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, and they confirm Ousley is not on their rolls. The Last email is from Doug Owsley, a SCNK Tribal Registrar official, that reads: “Good evening Luke, I’m happy to let you know that Ian Ousley is certainly a member of our Tribe.”

The next image is a quote retweet by New Orleans Lady @/IfIWereMagneto, which quote retweets 7genvoices. The tweet reads: “Beaucoup people, especially Natives, were saying this the moment Ian Ousley was announced and got harassed on the regular for calling out the fact that casting him as Sokka wasn’t just lightwashing (which was already bad enough cuz it was colorism) but outright whitewashing.”

A tweet by jien @/mishirinn from 18 Jan 2022 that reads: “the fact that real native have already been speaking up about Ian Ousley fraud tribe since 2011 and that they’re all white racists trying to claim being native… I literally have no words. #remove white Sokka #avatar the last airbender.” Attached is a Facebook post from 2011, by Thomas Edward Pearce. it reads: “Folks, Dennis and I are in agreement on this and we will be working to keep this group (Southern Cherokee Nation of Kentucky) from getting recognition by the state of Kentucky. The claim they are a tribe by way of their being the descendants of Confederate Soldiers who were welcomed to stop in Kentucky while on the run. Don not give them money. They are not real!” with a link to the SCNK website listed below. There is also attached comments from the post by Thomas Edward Pearce, that read: “They actually claim on their site that the "full blood Cherokees” hunted them to near extinction because of their “diluted blood” and because they refused to surrender to the North. They are a bunch of racists on a whole bunch of levels. Sounds to me like they are a bunch of Confederates, period.“

The next image is of a quote retweet of 7genvoices by South Dakota Johnson @/naurveen that reads: "not the Taylor Lautnerfication of Sokka.”

A tweet by “random black girl” @/irissirens that reads: “he wasn’t dark enough to be Sokka in the first place, and people were defending that when he looked like a white person, his parents Trump supporting crackers and he lied and joined a fake tribe. Netflix atla is so nasty for letting this happen.”

A tweet by grei @/sukialone that reads: “Ian Ousley tailored his personality to be just like Sokka so y'all would gush over him and say "he’s so perfect for Sokka!!” and it worked…“ End ID]

The people that keep saying that Asha is a copy of Isabela are actually just stupid racists, and no, you can’t change my mind.

I simply cannot take you seriously if you can pinpoint the differences between all of Disney’s white women but won’t give their women of colour the same grace. Isabela and Asha are both brown-skinned women that wear purple dresses and part their hair to the same side, but that’s about where the similarities end. Let me point out the differences for you so that you don’t keep sounding like an actual idiot!

Racist Tangled and Frozen fans arguing that Anna/Elsa and Rapunzel look totally different and it's impossible to tell them apart:

Those same racist stans when two women of color from two completely separate movies/worlds who DON'T conform to white femininity(and aren't even the same race) appear:

You explained this so well and I love that. It’s insane to me that white character designs are given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to being seen as individuals, but poc characters aren’t often afforded that same luxury.

If it’s this easy for people to make “they look the same” comments about animated characters, you might begin to wonder how they perceive poc in real life.. these racial biases always find a way of showing

They look the same because their character design’s literally call for it

The same case happened with Sisu’s final design. You can see in the concept art for both Sisu and Asha the designers had vastly different ideas of how to design the characters that match their cultures. At the end of the day though, Sisu has to look like Elsa and Asha has to look like Isabela because Disney knows that sells and they love playing it safe

Are there racists that complain just to complain? Of course. But they are too busy complaining how they don’t want an original Black character to be in fantasy Spain, despite acknowledging Black people lived in the area at this time period

But I promise you a lot of Black people saw Asha and thought “Isabela?” for a reason. Most of us couldn’t even tell she had braids, and honestly I wouldn’t be surprised they were designed by a White person. And this was before we found out she’s supposed to be from Spain but also Amazigh. They gave her “box braids” even though that’s not what North Africans typically would wear at this time, and if they did it would not look like this. They can’t even animate the movement of her braided hair properly, it’s so stiff and lifeless, because they are trying to mimic straight hair logic like Isabela’s

When it comes to character design, especially for something like Disney celebrating their 100 years of animation, this is terrible. Yes Black people have eyes we can see the physical differences between Isabela and Asha. You have to look closely at those details though. You take a glance at them and easily mix them up because their color pallets and silhouette shapes are similar. “But Isabella has a thicker body” that means nothing when most of it is covered with a dress, and long hair shaped like Asha’s. That’s the issue here.

You can tell the difference between a silhouette of Cinderella’s and Elsa’s designs if you black them out. And in the case of comparing it to Elsa and Rapunzel(since they have the same 3D animation), again you can tell the difference, because Rapunzel’s long hair is just that dynamic

But when you do the same for Asha and Isabela?(these photos are of courtesy to that one blog trying to tell me these look vastly different btw)

It becomes a lot more difficult to distinguish between the two. (that one blog also told me I seem to hate protective hairstyles by suggesting they give Asha hair accessories to break her design apart a bit……as I wore box braids at this time) Then when you do include colorized versions you see the same shape, brown skin, long dark hair, and purple asymmetrical dresses

Btw I’m not trying to come at you OP, because I can clearly see your main concern here stems from racists doing their thing and acting frustratingly aloof as always. Which they are, I literally saw one of them complaining about how Asha and Isabela look similar the other day. Thing is, they are not someone that knows the rules of character design, and they only brought it up to rant how Disney pushes agendas of darkskinned propaganda or something. They did not care for cultural accuracies, or design philosophies

Also these are not real people. They are animated pixels that look the way they do depending on the artist. What we see now is what the artists(and corporate Disney) decided was marketable and easy to sell. So when people say they look the same, it’s most likely not because they can’t tell the difference between two racial groups. It’s because they are pixels that literally have no say how they are designed and portrayed

But you are going to see actual designers, including Black ones point out this is a bad design for reasons I listed here, and then some. Black people, especially those of us that design characters either for a living or as a hobby, are going to be extra critical here. Disney keeps on thinking they can put in minimum effort when it comes to us, and we’re tired

these two things can both be right.

i look at isabela and asha straight on and am like....that's the same shape. their actual features are very different, because the characters' ethnicities are different, yes, but also -- disney definitely did not put enough detail/differences into their characters.

the animation style frustrates me too because if this were 2D animation these women would look as different as they should look. but it's 3D, and this "baby faced women" problem in animation we've got going on is rampant. disney didn't do the work.

all that said, to say they look the same because brown skin and purple and side part and "round face" and brown eyes is racist and it should be called out as such.

Damn no reading comprehension?

@blackfilmmakers

No actually, you know what? That was really rude. You're seriously going to subtweet "skill issue" because a random person on the internet didn't respond beat for beat to your take on the discussion?

This is a blog website, not an academic discussion forum. Glad to see stuff like this is discussed in places like this, but nobody is under any obligation to write a thesis to participate in a discussion. I could have just reblogged and gone about my day, as can anyone, but I had something to add. I said my points. If you have an actual response, say that, but don't just go on your high and mighty horse and insinuate that someone isn't nuanced, skilled or intelligent enough to even be qualified to comment on your academic diatribe. Screw you, actually.

I deadass stopped reading after "No actually, you know what?"

The people that keep saying that Asha is a copy of Isabela are actually just stupid racists, and no, you can’t change my mind.

I simply cannot take you seriously if you can pinpoint the differences between all of Disney’s white women but won’t give their women of colour the same grace. Isabela and Asha are both brown-skinned women that wear purple dresses and part their hair to the same side, but that’s about where the similarities end. Let me point out the differences for you so that you don’t keep sounding like an actual idiot!

Racist Tangled and Frozen fans arguing that Anna/Elsa and Rapunzel look totally different and it's impossible to tell them apart:

Those same racist stans when two women of color from two completely separate movies/worlds who DON'T conform to white femininity(and aren't even the same race) appear:

You explained this so well and I love that. It’s insane to me that white character designs are given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to being seen as individuals, but poc characters aren’t often afforded that same luxury.

If it’s this easy for people to make “they look the same” comments about animated characters, you might begin to wonder how they perceive poc in real life.. these racial biases always find a way of showing

They look the same because their character design’s literally call for it

The same case happened with Sisu’s final design. You can see in the concept art for both Sisu and Asha the designers had vastly different ideas of how to design the characters that match their cultures. At the end of the day though, Sisu has to look like Elsa and Asha has to look like Isabela because Disney knows that sells and they love playing it safe

Are there racists that complain just to complain? Of course. But they are too busy complaining how they don’t want an original Black character to be in fantasy Spain, despite acknowledging Black people lived in the area at this time period

But I promise you a lot of Black people saw Asha and thought “Isabela?” for a reason. Most of us couldn’t even tell she had braids, and honestly I wouldn’t be surprised they were designed by a White person. And this was before we found out she’s supposed to be from Spain but also Amazigh. They gave her “box braids” even though that’s not what North Africans typically would wear at this time, and if they did it would not look like this. They can’t even animate the movement of her braided hair properly, it’s so stiff and lifeless, because they are trying to mimic straight hair logic like Isabela’s

When it comes to character design, especially for something like Disney celebrating their 100 years of animation, this is terrible. Yes Black people have eyes we can see the physical differences between Isabela and Asha. You have to look closely at those details though. You take a glance at them and easily mix them up because their color pallets and silhouette shapes are similar. “But Isabella has a thicker body” that means nothing when most of it is covered with a dress, and long hair shaped like Asha’s. That’s the issue here.

You can tell the difference between a silhouette of Cinderella’s and Elsa’s designs if you black them out. And in the case of comparing it to Elsa and Rapunzel(since they have the same 3D animation), again you can tell the difference, because Rapunzel’s long hair is just that dynamic

But when you do the same for Asha and Isabela?(these photos are of courtesy to that one blog trying to tell me these look vastly different btw)

It becomes a lot more difficult to distinguish between the two. (that one blog also told me I seem to hate protective hairstyles by suggesting they give Asha hair accessories to break her design apart a bit……as I wore box braids at this time) Then when you do include colorized versions you see the same shape, brown skin, long dark hair, and purple asymmetrical dresses

Btw I’m not trying to come at you OP, because I can clearly see your main concern here stems from racists doing their thing and acting frustratingly aloof as always. Which they are, I literally saw one of them complaining about how Asha and Isabela look similar the other day. Thing is, they are not someone that knows the rules of character design, and they only brought it up to rant how Disney pushes agendas of darkskinned propaganda or something. They did not care for cultural accuracies, or design philosophies

Also these are not real people. They are animated pixels that look the way they do depending on the artist. What we see now is what the artists(and corporate Disney) decided was marketable and easy to sell. So when people say they look the same, it’s most likely not because they can’t tell the difference between two racial groups. It’s because they are pixels that literally have no say how they are designed and portrayed

But you are going to see actual designers, including Black ones point out this is a bad design for reasons I listed here, and then some. Black people, especially those of us that design characters either for a living or as a hobby, are going to be extra critical here. Disney keeps on thinking they can put in minimum effort when it comes to us, and we’re tired

Fuck it, Urbanism hot take night, none of you bitches actually know what gentrification is

Those dilapidated warehouses being demolished and turned into a restaurant or an apartment complex is not gentrification

No, that man with a metrosexual haircut wearing airpods on the bus is not gentrifying your neighborhood, he is a person, not the American socio-economic landscape

@clearancecreedwatersurvival You'd be surprised how many people fail to grasp this

Like people will see affordable housing being built and say "Gentrification" because it's a 5 over 1 and has modern architecture

@timelineman-of-titors-edge A 5 over 1 is this bitch, the most hated architecture in the nation:

They are incredibly cheap to build apartment buildings with the current building codes. They are called 5 over 1's because they are 5 floors with wooden frames over a concrete base

Shout out to someone finally getting the point of this post

@socalgal FORREAL!

what everyone describing here IS gentrification. those tags describing the thing that arent are thee literal definition of gentrification. now i dont know who told the crackers here that they're not contributing to the problem but they are. you all are when you move to poor black/brown neighborhoods in search of cheaper(literally only for you!) housing that residents cannot afford. those cute shops/bars that suddenly pop up? the residents of colour cant afford to go there! and the ones that can are NOT the clientele theyre looking for and you all know it. white people need to stop acting obtuse and face the facts: you bring harm with you when you move in these places. you price these people out when you come because the government, businesses, and hell, even other white people place a higher value on you than us. YOU are the problem and you need to grow up and face that fact. if you dont like it do something about it instead of shifting the blame. small scale gentrification IS still gentrification. it builds in these small insidious pockets until every black and brown person gets moved out for YOU whitepeople.

what i absolutely hate about white people what makes me literally ILL about white people is the way like despite decades of study, analysis, and academic writing on gentrification they just wake up one morning and decide to poof it all away in their minds because some random racist people experiencing mentally crippling white guilt decided that everyone else is wrong, that the only valid definition of gentrification is the one that makes them feel good. this kind of attitude and thought process is the backbone of the white moderate racism that black liberationists have been critiquing for decades and its so fucking sad!!! but to a white person their feelings will always conquer reality, they will always discard the reality of their actions to protect the fantasy land in their minds where they are constantly the underdogs who can do no wrong, in fact any analysis of systematic racism that depicts them in any other light is Misunderstanding them. Its not accounting for their fragile white feelings, therefore it cant be true.

i just dont understand what how you fix people like this? i dont understand how you share any community spaces with them either. hundreds of black voices crying out about the concept of gentrification for decades, academical writings and personal accounts, the economy permanently damaged from this insanely fucked up economic practice thats it clear as fucking day but all it takes is one completely unqualified ass cracker to do what crackers always do and decide their feelings are actually intellectually defined fact and 30k other crackers just go "yeah ill believe that. ill decide thats my understanding of gentrification. this white person is saying racist shit i want to hear without making me feel bad so sure this random fucking post on a social media site is the best understanding on fucking gentrification okay!" like how do you fix that!?! these people need to be lobotomized

Update & Signal Boost: Dhobi ki Kutti

Two weeks ago we uplifted two posts from Dhobi ki Kutti, a fan of color and OTW volunteer, that recount the retaliation she's experienced at the hands of OTW leadership for speaking out against racism within the organization. One post shared a Constructive Corrective Action Procedure (CCAP) letter from OTW Chairs that reads as a blatant attempt to silence her. The other demanded the suspension of OTW Board Member Alex Tischer for their repeated racist remarks. Tischer has since resigned from the Board, along with Antonius Melisse and Natalia Gruber.

Kutti's latest post Racism within the OTW goes into further detail about her experiences as a volunteer, and the racism she's witnessed and been subjected to:

We here at End OTW Racism offer Dhobi ki Kutti our full support and will continue to push the OTW to address the racism within its organization. You can read dhobikikutti's full post at Dreamwidth.

just want to add my support for kutti, both on everything that eotwr has named above, but also on another attempted takedown of kutti by a former otw board candidate.

after kutti posted the ccap response she received from otw tag wrangling chairs and the board, @yishaqeni, who withdrew from his board candidacy and apparently from the otw in general in june (he is not audrey r, the other board candidate who withdrew more recently), posted these two screeds about kutti, in which they tone police kutti, mischaracterize her words, and confuse her for another volunteer of color. i wrote a rebuttal of yishaqeni's claims because quite frankly i think the posts are racist and vile.

while i don't know any of the people involved personally, nor am i an otw volunteer or someone who has seen these conversations go down internally, it's pretty evident to me that kutti continues to be targeted for speaking up about racism. nothing in yishaqeni's post (except for the thing they mixed up between kutti and another poc) reads to me as anything more than expressions of the understandable frustration and anger that a volunteer of color like kutti would feel after more than three years of trying to get otw leadership to act on racism. and the way yishaqeni actively mischaracterizes some of what kutti's done makes me very wary of trusting their perspective on this to begin with.

yishaqeni has not to my knowledge apologized for the posts, nor in fact said anything on his tumblr about the situation since kutti pointed out that they had mixed her up with another volunteer of color in one of their accusations.

I’ve been thinking a lot about fandom recently, both as someone who has engaged with it regularly for over a decade on various platforms and also as someone who has increasingly become disenchanted with those spaces. Not only because of pervasive issues of (especially anti-Black) racism, misogyny, transphobia/homophobia, and the like, but the particular way those things take shape within fandom.

At the most basic level I think fandom has a fundamental methodological problem with the way it approaches texts, be they shows, books, movies, etc. What I mean is that people almost invariably approach fandom at the level of character, often at the level of ship - your primary way of viewing a text is filtered through favourite characters and favourite relationships, as opposed to, say, favourite scenes, favourite themes, favourite conflicts.

This is reinforced through the architecture of dominant platforms that host fan content, particularly AO3 - there are separate categories for fandom, character and ship, and everything else is lumped together in “Additional Tags.” You cannot, for example, filter for fics on AO3 by the category of “critical perspective” or “thematic exploration”. There is no dedicated space for fan authors to declare their analytical perspective on the text they are writing about. If an author declares these things, they do so individually, they must go out of their way to do so, because there are no dedicated or universally agreed-upon tags to indicate those things, and if your fanfiction has a lot of tags, that announcement of criticality gets mushed together in a sea of other tags, sharing the same space with tags like “fluff and angst” or “porn without plot.” Perhaps one of the few tags closest to approaching this is the tag “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat,” which doesn’t indicate perspective or theme but rather that there is, broadly, some kind of “problematic content” contained therein - often of a sexual nature, frequently as a warning about “bad” ships.

Now this is not an inherent problem, as in, it is not inherently incorrect to approach a text and primarily derive pleasure from it by focusing on a given character or relationship. And I think a lot of mainstream media encourages (even requires) audiences to engage with their stories at these character- and ship-levels. The political economy of the production of art (one which is capitalistic, one that seeks to generate comfort, titillation, controversy, nostalgia, or shock for the purposes of drawing in viewership, one that increasingly pursues social media metrics of “engagement” and “impressions”, one that allows for the Netflix model of making two-season shows before cancelling them, as well as a whole host of other things) enforces a particular narrative orthodoxy, one that heavily focuses on the individual interiority of specific characters, one that is deeply concerned with the maintenance of white bourgeois middle class values of property ownership, the nuclear family, normative heterosexual sexuality and gender, settler-colonial ideas about community and environment, etc. If you do not care about the familial drama surrounding Shauna cheating on her husband in Yellowjackets, for example, because you think the institution of monogamous marriage and the nuclear family is stupid and violent and heternormative, then you will have a difficult time engaging with the show in general. We exist within a deeply normative (and frequently reactionary) media environment that encourages us to approach art in a particular way, one that privileges the individual over other narrative components (settings, themes, conflicts, ideas, political and moral perspectives, structure, tone, etc).

All of which culminates in priming fans to engage with art at these levels and these levels alone, even when that scope is deeply inappropriate. A standout example I recently encountered was browsing the fandom tags on tumblr for the movie Prey - a movie that recontextualises the original Predator film by setting it in colonial America to make the argument that the horrific violence of white colonists and imperial soldiers is identical to the violence we see the Predator do to human beings. It is a movie that makes the argument that, despite this alien monster running around killing people, the villains of the franchise are these occupying soldiers and settlers, an alien force who themselves have just as little regard for (indigenous) human life.

And when browsing the tags on tumblr, what I found was dozens upon dozens of horny posts about how hot the predator monster was. Certainly there were discussion of the film’s narrative, and these posts got a good amount of notes, but the tags were heavily dominated with a focus on the Predator itself. People were engaging with this film not as a solid action movie with interesting and compelling anti-colonial themes, but as a way to be horny about a creature that is, ironically, a stand-in for white settler indifference to (and perpetuation of) indigenous suffering. And if this is your takeaway from an extremely straightforward film with a very clear message, this is not merely a failure to comprehend the content of a text, this is something beyond it - a problem that I think is due in part to the methodological problem of approaching all texts as vessels for bourgeois interiority, individual but ultimately interchangeable expressions of sexuality, perhaps best-expressed by the term “roving slash fandom,” a phenomenon wherein fans will move from one fandom to the next in search of two (usually white, usually skinny) guys to draw and write porn of, uncaring of any of the surrounding context of the stories they are embedded in, and consequently dominating a large sector of fandom discussion.

This even gets expressed in the primary ideological battleground of fandom itself, the ridiculous partitioning of all fan conflict into “pro-“ and “anti-“ shipping compartments. Your stance on engagement with fandom itself historically was (and still is) always first filtered through one of these two labels, describing your fundamental perspective on all texts you engage with. And both of these two labels are only concerned with shipping, as if all disagreements about art can only be interpreted through the lens of what characters you think are acceptable to draw or write having sex. Nowhere in this binary is space to describe any other perspective you might take, what approaches you think are valuable when interacting with art, what themes or stories you think are worth exploring. It’s not just that the pro/anti divide is juvenile and overly-simplistic, it is a declaration that all fan conflict must be read through the lens of shipping and shipping only - the implication being that any objections raised, and criticisms offered, is ultimately just bitching about ships you don’t like.

Which, again, I think is a fundamental error of methodology. It leaves no space for people to discuss the political and moral content of a work, the themes of a piece of art, the thorny issues of representation not just as expressed through individual characters but entire worlds, narratives, settings, and themes. You are always hopelessly stuck in the quagmire of “shipping discourse,” and even rejecting that framework will inevitably get you labelled as either pro- or anti-ship anyway - and you will almost invariably be labelled an “anti” if you express any kind of distaste for the bigoted behaviour of fans or the content of the text itself, again reinforcing the idea that this is all just pointless whining online about icky ships you personally hate.

And this issue is best perhaps epitomised by reader insert fanfiction, circumventing any need for you to project onto a character by literally inserting yourself into fiction, primarily in order to write/read about a character you want to fuck. This then intersects in particularly disgusting ways with real world politics, such as reader insert fics about Pedro Pascal going with you to BLM protests. Even if this is (incredibly over-generously) interpreted as a very poor attempt at being “progressive,” it still demonstrates that many (white) fans are often incapable of thinking about anything outside of a character-centric perspective, quite literally centring themselves in the process, and consequently they think it’s totally appropriate to do things like that. The fact that this is also frequently a racist lens is not coincidental, because again, a chronic focus on (fictional) individuality prohibits any structural perspective from entering the discussion, which necessarily excludes a coherent or useful perspective on systemic issues, where people come to the conclusion that the topic of police brutality is little more than a fun stage to enact whatever romantic shenanigans you want to get up to with a hot guy.

I will stress, again, that it is not a moral sin to have a favourite character, nor is it bad to enjoy reading about two guys having sex in fanfiction. I enjoy and do those things, I engage with fandom often through a character-centric lens (see my url) - because it’s fun! But I think that this being the dominant mode of engagement inherently excludes and marginalises all other approaches, and creates a fandom space where the most valuable way to talk about media is to discuss which two characters you most enjoy imagining fucking each other

I say again, the two (reductive, scapegoating) terms [exclusively] about shipping (particularly the one) should’ve never been legitimized. It’s made a preexisting derailment problem worse in the landscape of discussing what’s laid above in this post.

It’s done serious damage to general discussion about and how audiences tend to, or prefer to engage, with what they watch or read in fan spaces. And particularly with how it how that behavior is so typically anti-Black, sexist, and homophobic.

Imagine creating the Ghana flag in order to replace the UK flag and rid of it's colonization influence over your country, only for Ian Jones and Rebecca Sugar to be your grandchildren

I'd haunt them!!!

THEY WENT OUT OF THEIR WAY TO MAKE US FEEL BAD FOR THE COLONIZERS I CAN’T STAND IT-

This is her btw. Theodosia Okoh, a teacher and the creator of the Ghana National Flag. Accomplished so much in a lifetime

Only for your grandchild the his partner to create this shit

Also Ghana is just fucking gone in this world, what the hell-

It's not gone it's just part of the now enlarged South America. Nanefua & her son Kofi were both born there.

Also the Zoomans outfit is cute. Just saying.

Oh that just means they aren’t actually African then

Also the Zoomans? The literal human beings placed in a zoo that got to wear sexualized clothing? And want to stay there because actually they are much happier living in a zoo? That’s what you want to call cute?

My point stands that regardless of what continent it's apart of, Ghana still exists in the world of Steven Universe. It's people & culture are still present in the world.

I feel like I shouldn't need to point out that me saying that the Zooman's outfit is cute isn't the same as me condoning what happened to them but apparently I was wrong.

Also kindly refrain from insulting me just because I post something you disagree with. If you feel I got something wrong then you're free to say so, just be respectful.

I already pointed the South American thing out in another reblog and in the tags and how dumb that is. Either way, no I’m not gonna be “respectful” towards racism. Like that’s not gonna happen

No it’s not going to be the same cultures and the same people. The literal reason Ghana’s culture, people and it’s flag (I literally pointed this out in the first post) is the way it is is, because of the effects of colonization. That doesn’t exist in this world though. So no it’s not going to be the same people with the same cultural identities

A lot of Black people in South America in real life are stolen people that come from West Africa. While there are some similarities considering the origins, they still got completely different systems and backgrounds. It’s fucking South America, whole different environment, whole different groups of people’s, whole different languages and resources

Edit: Also you saying the outfits are cute? Guess what? You’re sexualizing indigenous people who are reduced to animals. Do you think people didn’t have your kind of reasoning with actual human zoos?

Let me be abundantly clear about my thinking regarding this post. I saw your post saying Ghana was "gone" in the world of Steven Universe. Knowing that members of the Crewniverse had specifically mentioned Ghana as the birthplace Nanefua Pizza, I pointed this fact out. I was correcting a factual inaccuracy nothing more.

Likewise with my saying the outfit worn by the Zoomans is cute. I think it's well designed and the blue & white go well together. That was the extent of my thinking. I wasn't "sexualizing" anyone, I was commenting on clothing worn by fictional characters.

This was literally my entire thought process.

using tumblr has completely annihilated my ability to understand ‘girl’ as a normal word in the english language. when i see a weird shaped onion at the grocery store im like ‘ok. girl’

girl is not a word tumblr made up its AAVE

“Tumblr annihilated my ability-” literally wtf are yall talking about?

Have yall not met a Black person outside this site? Another human being even?

Besides the fact the “girl” talk has always been a part of aave, yall make it sound like you’ve never heard people use it outside of tumblr.

Ontop of that, some of you in the comments really doing the clapback and “sassy fingersnap” thing and somehow still not get it 😑

no actually i don’t meet many african americans in my daily life as a Venezuelan living in the united kingdom. all the kpop fans calling me white in the notes are imagining a version of this post i never made. i didn’t say tumblr made this up or that it’s internet speak or whatever. just that tumblr is what made me start saying it. sorry that this post about my personal experiences didn’t accurately represent the history of the slang term it was about

I never understood why you guys point out someone is a kpop stan in these events, and it turns out there is like one or two you personally got beef with, but whatever

The use of “girl” has been used all over the place outside of tumblr. That includes other social medias and movies and shows and countries. It’s not some unique phenomenon unless tumblr is the only source you have to talk to Americans

But either way, majority of your comments are from people well aware of American culture or Americans themselves, acting like it is purely internet talk. That is what most of us are referring to

If you truly did not personally know, that isn’t your fault. But Black people correcting the information because we are used to everyone taking our manner of speech for their own, does not point fault at us either

i obviously know that the AAVE use of the term girl precedes it blowing on tumblr and that the appropriation of and erasure of AAVE is a big and prevalent problem in internet circles. i’m just pointing out that people are reading something into my original post that i never said–i said that tumblr had introduced this word to my vocabulary, which is true. nothing about my post implies that the word is endemic to tumblr or that it’s ‘internet speak’. folks are getting mad because of a version of this post that doesnt exist but they imagined in their head

british black people and afrovenezolanos dont speak AAVE

ye… yes they do have you ever heard john boyega speak…?

good sir the ‘AA’ in AAVE stands for african american. you know. not people who are from either the UK or venezuela.

You’re missing the point i made of AAVE being specifically African American, so not used by the people of the UK (unless they are immigrants, of course). You are correct about people having differences in their use of language due to their African heritage, I believe the name for this is pattoire. Gatekeeping the use of phrases like ‘girl’ which have become detached from where they came from because the new user doesn’t fit with the original demographic is silly, because you know that’s how we have words like beef and pork in English.

Why the hell did you follow me if you gonna have this shit ass take, and not bother reading the history of African languages worldwide

“African American is only in America” you do know that the first terms describing this language didn’t have an emphasis on “America” right?

@stephanos-spaceopera even gave you a whole Black linguist that explained all this, and you ignored it, bye

I love this generation. I hope we all die.

just here to add that tumblr user @earthnation started all this with this thrussy post in 2017 which influenced the one thicc bih meme cited in the paper in the second screenshot so say your thanks to an icon!

Are we really pretending like this wasn't started by Black gays coining bussy - boy pussy - well before thrussy?

After reading the vulture article shown in the second screenshot, @callmemothra you credited this to a white man when the article literally said this was an example of AAVE once again being co-opted by non-Blacks? Did you read the article before saying this?

[ID: a screenshot from part of the vulture article that reads “So -ussification has expanded beyond queer borders into a more general- audience meme world. Baker lays the mainstreaming of queer language at RuPaul’s feet, hunty, saying, “RuPaul’s Drag Race came along — condragulations, entertaintment, Rupologize — and it has helped to bring the practice a bit further into the mainstream.” This mainstreaming comes with a soupçon of appropriation. Bussy frequently appears on lists of words that originated in AAVE and were taken by white people. Doubtless, it will join its fallen brethren “and i oop,” “throwing shade,” and “yas queen.” On the other hand, much -ussification seems like a deliberate attempt to destabilize English as a whole. The goal is not to run a trend into the ground, it is to obliterate any notion of fixed meaning.”. End ID.]

Don’t know how to feel about the wording here implying aave destroys English lexicon, but yeah, the article very much states -ussy trend came from AAVE, and y’all are running it to the ground and choose to deem it cringe

I love this generation. I hope we all die.

just here to add that tumblr user @earthnation started all this with this thrussy post in 2017 which influenced the one thicc bih meme cited in the paper in the second screenshot so say your thanks to an icon!

Are we really pretending like this wasn't started by Black gays coining bussy - boy pussy - well before thrussy?

I’m not an expert in all things aave or anything, but can y’all at least question where these things originated?

Anything you deem gen z or internet talk, just go ahead and assume it’s aave

I hate how a lot of aids or substitutes are treated solely for snobby entitled jerks sometimes

Walking canes are for rich gentlemen as an accessory

Contacts is only something you wear to look "prettier" and not wear those dorky glasses

Asking for alternative milk and gluten free options makes you a Becky and the most annoying person in the Starbucks

I get media depicts all of these a certain way where we associate them for those that don't need this stuff, they're being extra. But people still need this stuff

I'm sorry, but this is very judgemental. I have family members who need to ask for alternative milk and gluten free items at coffee shops because ordering non-gluten free items and regular milk in their drinks will bother them. It's not "extra stuff" for them. It's practicing self-care.

Walking canes are a legitimate aid for the elderly and other people who genuinely need them to walk. I have a friend who needs a cane because of problems in her feet. It helps her to keep her balance. Or would the OP rather have my friend fall and hurt herself because she didn't have her cane to steady herself?

Contacts are also used in movies and TV to change an actor's eye color when it's necessary for the character they're playing.

Orlando Bloom had to wear contacts in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit because he has brown eyes in real life. His character, Legolas, has blonde hair and blue eyes.

Same thing happened with Tom Cruise in Interview With the Vampire. Tom Cruise has green eyes in real life. But his character, Lestat de Lioncourt, has blonde hair and blue eyes.

Blonde hair and green or brown eyes are uncommon, but more importantly, neither of those color combos fit the characters Bloom and Cruise were playing in the aforementioned movies.

And yes, I know I just mentioned two white characters played by two white actors, but that's beside the point.

My point is all three of the things the OP mentioned are valid needs for people and aren't just treated as things for entitled people.

This is a very silly thing to reply with

Sorry! I feel so mortified. I have high-functioning autism, so I have a hard time detecting tone sometimes, especially when it's just text. I thought you were serious. I didn't know what the full context was until you just told me.

I didn't see your last sentence. My bad!

Often, I do something like this and then feel terrible afterwards, especially when I see that I've somehow hurt or upset the person.

Nice pic, though!

That's understandable

Just read through these things carefully next time, and maybe look into everyone else's replies in the tags to get the full picture

I take it back, your ass is just annoying as hell

Disney announced their new project called "Wish" featuring an afro latina protagonist named Asha

She's pretty, but yall this is just Isabela

Disney, if this is still concept art then please give her a different color pallet. Or silhouette

Maybe give her an afro? A short afro hairstyle? Or put beads in her hair? Something

Why ? I'm confused like why ?

Disney has a bunch of blond blue eye blue palette girlies but two dark-skinned purple girls are too much ???

The darker skinned and purple girls have all unique design to them so its not like there's a pattern

A color does not belong to one character and dark skin characters can have similar palette to each other, its not a crime. Also I would love an afro but lets not pretend there's an abundance of disney princess character with braids. The hair is not even the same since protective hairstyle =/= straight hair.

get a load of fuzzetoons, not knowing how character design, color theory and same face syndrome works.

same face ?

isabella one of the few disney girls with a different face shape has the same face as asha ?

heres a bit for Isabella character design

Now where are those flowers on Asha ? is is just the purple thats similar ? Is there a color-can-only-belong-to-one-character rules that i dont know about since you know more than me on character design

And if there's is does it only apply to poc ?

oh no another ginger with purple clothes, such bad character design

No one said colors belong to one perosn the problem is the first glance this character looks like Isabelle, which is a problem cus we know disney sells dolls, you want dolls to be distinct from one another if theyre from the same company. we are criticise cus we want asha to sell. not to mention this coupd be disney being shady again cus they just are they dont care about representation the way you think man

dude youre literally proving you dont jnow the nuances of character design and color palettes. red/orange and purple is indeed a common color but youd notice the jetsons mom has a style reminsdent of Googie Architecure of the 1960s, Dpahne is dressed in the Mod style, both are the 60s, but both are disinct fashion to give you an idea of who the characters are. Aurora was desgined in the 60s yet she doesnt dress in those two modern styles. which makes her disinct.

isabella and asha are both in purple A line ayssemtrical dresses with long straight asymmetrical dark hair, yes one is in braids but its hard to tell without looking much closer which is a character design flaw. Both dresses are also very monochrome. a simple color change and hairstyle is enough to differentiate them from a glance. you bring up we hate protective styles but you cant even fathom protective hairstyles come in different shapes and sizes, cus if you did, youd agree. afro and i discussed privately cus like lol were both black and wanna see styles not commonly seen in animation for us. even a short afro would be nice for once.

no ine said asha cant exist people are saying asha can be mistaken for isabella which is an issue when marketinng comes into play. And disney always had a same face issue and fans akways talekd about it.

thr whole point of character design is not to cinfuse one with another there is a clear ass differsnce between all 4 of those other characters outwide of color scheme. Its where the colors are which is color values btw, its what shade those colors are, its also costume and hairstyle design which is charcater deisgn in an anijated scenario, artsyyle plays a role thats where disneys same face kinda falls into, but you cna have an artstyle and still avoid same face. Theres a huge difference between barbara and starfire from costume design alone.

niggas has been syaing every disney recent charcaer has elsa faec and theyre right in some capacity. or at least has the same big ol eyes theres def some sort of same face happening ppl are eve noticing it happenign to pixar.

hell the fact alice has child proportions compared to aurora and cinderella makes her look different from them despite them alk being blonde (aurora orignially had brown eyes btw)

hell jsut change her damn dress color and hairetyle black and brown ppl dont have just ine style briads dint come in one shape disney should do better cus thye make too much money .

plus this could be a sign of poor production behind the scnes which disney is defintely known for and that does effect good charactedr design.

How is me saying that protectives hairstyles and braids are not the same as straight hair the same as saying you hate protectives hairstyles ? Asha could be the first disney main girls with braids but we should change that because she could looks like a secondary non-black character ?

Her hair are not hard to see, you were just looking at a picture of a picture

look me dead in the eyes and they tell me you don't see braids.

Why would they be shady to Asha when shes the main character of the movies to celebrates their 100 year ? They were shady to their latest 2d movies cuz they wanted to moves to 3d and they are shady to their queer character cuz they see them as bad sells but shady to to their one century anniversary movie ????

The disney girls are not following elsa faces they are following the disney face they use in the disney art style when they makes disney movies from the Disney company. It change from one decades to another but they make sure their main girls have it. Asha is a main girl with it. Isabella is not and had a bit of a different one

they have been doing it from the start, that's their distinctive style that make every disney movie, a disney movie, and most disney girl, a disney girl.

Now you mention dolls

to make this doll looks like Asha they would have to reroot her hair, change her face mold, change the body and change her clothes and accessories. Going a bit too far for a doll they apparently wanted to make a copy of.

You already told me you aren't Black in the DMs and that you just argue with people of color for funsies, so no one is gonna take you seriously at this point