Via ew_younerd: How racist is American anthropology?

Yes, Ntarangwi has conducted an anthropological study of American anthropology! An important undertaking. He has studied textbooks, ethnographies, coursework, professional meetings, and feedback from colleagues and mentors. He “reverses the gaze", he stresses: Whereas Western anthropologists often study non-Western cultures, he studies “the Western culture of anthropology".

He is especially interested in “the cultural and racial biases that shape anthropological study in general".

In the preface and introduction he writes:

If anthropology truly begins at home as Malinowski states, how come, as I had thus far observed, anthropology tended to focus on the “exotic"? How come only a small percentage of fieldwork and scholarship by Western anthropologists focused on their own cultures, and when they did it was among individuals and communities on the peripheries, their own “exotics” such as those in extreme poverty, in gangs, ad others outside mainstream culture? (…)

This book is a personal journey into the heart of anthropology; representing my own pathways as an African student entering American higher education in the early 1990s that I knew very little about. It is a story about my initial entry into an American academic space very different from my own experience in Kenya, where we followed a British system of education.

It is also a story hemmed within a specific discourse and views about anthropology that can be best represented by remarks from fellow graduate students who wondered what i was doing in a “racist” discipline. (…) Troubled by this label, I consciously embarked on a journey to find more about the discipline.

Fantastic.

And, randomly, I take the opportunity to wish you all a great 2011.

Seriously? The response to this... seriously?

Because the fact that this woman claimed it was a latino man means... what?

Via delux_vivens, French senate bans the niqāb.

Many Muslims believe the legislation is one more blow to France's second religion, and risks raising the level of Islamophobia in a country where mosques, like synagogues, are sporadic targets of hate. However, the vast majority behind the measure say it will preserve the nation's singular values, including its secular foundation and a notion of fraternity that is contrary to those who hide their faces.

France would be the first European country to pass such a law though others, notably neighbouring Belgium, are considering laws against face-covering veils, seen as anathema to the local culture.

Uhm, "fraternity contrary to those who hide their faces." Do I need to say more?

Amazing post on ontd_feminism: The white person's guide to being visibly racist.

Despite your best efforts, your earnest and totally misguided offensive appropriation can fade from memory with time. Luckily, there's a way around this. For generations, people have covered their flesh in stereotypical depictions of other human beings and their cultures, and it has yet to go out of vogue. A couple of sugar skulls on your upper arms will lend an exotic vibe to any WASP, and, what with the overwhelming current of xenophobia and racism in today's society, no actual Latin@ is likely to feel comfortable challenging you on it. If they do, make sure to tell them how much you loooooove their culture and it means sooooo much to you. They'll look like ungrateful meanyheads and will be forced to back off. If all else fails, ask them how they celebrated the last Day of the Dead. No doubt they'll say something boring about visiting the graves of their dead family members or something, whereas you made up your face like a Sylvia Ji painting, baked some authentic Mexican bread using authentic internet recipes, and built a shrine to Frida Kahlo. It's clear who the winner is.

Not feeling this Mexican stuff? Get a gypsy or geisha, or maybe an American Indian. Don't let anybody tell you this is offensive. After all, such designs have been used for years, and tattoos are all about your feelings, not about centuries of ongoing marginalization and genocide. It is your right as a privileged person to have cartoonish depictions of other human beings permanently marked on your body.

Also, Sociological Images people find this video "amazing".

The appropriation of the song works on so many levels: the all heavily-white, all-female group, the sweet choral arrangement, the pastel prep fashion, the strategically placed tennis rackets. They use race, class, and gender contradictions to force us to see and hear the song in a new way. All serve to mock the original, taking the teeth out of the language at the same time that they expose it as grossly misogynistic. Awesome.

Apparently, the fact they are all white women with sweet choral arrangement, pastel prep fashion is supposed to be... what? Dude, no one is going to deny the song is misogynist as fuck, but... here, I'm not quite finding it that funny. Not if you take into account USA's culture, and how black men were actually murdered for daring to look wrong at white women. Also, why are only white women there when it's supposed to be a "reaction" to the song when said song isn't even about white women. But you know women of color aren't useful for the parody because they aren't regarded as "pure" as WASP are. Which I don't find funny. Have Karnythia's post: White Women, Tears, and Coded Images (she is talking about Taylor Swift and Kayne, not about the issue of this song with women which is a big deal but, again, not towards white women):

Ooh, a whole stage show geared to present this image of delicate white femininity while you sing about your innocence being violated. By a scary black man.

Gee, that’s not a coded message we’ve seen before at all. Oh wait, let’s talk about the idea of white people feeling violated by black people “not knowing their place” and what that’s meant historically to American society. Better yet, let’s really dig down into why we’re singing about violated innocence like being interrupted on stage is at all equivalent to being physically assaulted. Oh, but then we might have to get into who interrupted her and whether this would be such a big deal if the racial makeup was different.

Via delux_vivens, ‘We are human.’

But they want a tour guide. They want to watch somebody bleed. Pain as entertainment.

“Can you share with us a time when you experienced racism and how you dealt with it?” she asks, her eyes bright in a flushed face. “What was the worst thing that ever happened to you?”

I stopped relating my experience when I realized incidents that cut me deeply became cocktail-party chatter for others. When I realized that doing so caused white people to have a sense of false familiarity with me. When I realized that they recounted my life as if it were their own, as if they owned it, as if they owned me. When I realized they did so not to make others feel my humanity, but to reinforce their belief in their own.

Picnic lunches beneath a hanging man.

The reality is that I cannot convince others of my humanity when they do not believe it. Or when they have lost so much of their own humanity that they cannot possibly see my own. And the reality is that my attempts to do so make me feel loathing and self-hatred and shame.

If I were truly human, would my humanity be self-evident? If I were equal, would this equality not be recognized?

The answers seem obvious. But history tells me otherwise. Depersonalizing racism allows me to see that it is not my humanity that is actually being called into question. It is the humanity of those who cannot see the humanity of others. And yet this racism is like pouring acid on my own skin. With my own hands.

I tell myself: I cannot seek a reflection of my own humanity in a mirror that is encrusted with racism. Seeking that reflection is like rubbing the dirt onto my own hands, my body, my heart. I cannot find validation in white people. There is no true reflection.

I will not say I am human too.

Although both white people and some people of color espouse the belief that living as a credit to my race is the best way to change hearts and minds, I do not believe this to be true. Because nothing about the way I behave or comport myself does anything to change the deeply entrenched, racist views of the majority.

It does not matter what I do. It does not matter who I am.

My parents took care to keep us clean and presentable. They had stricter rules of behavior and deportment than any of my white friends. Hair always combed and clean. No shorts in public. No bare feet. Yes ma’am and no sir and thank you very much. Good grades in school and impeccable behavior. G-d help you if you didn’t. They came from the “We beat you now so the police won’t kill you later” school.

And yet it didn’t really matter. I am reminded of this years later, when a white woman in an upscale department store glares and refers to two nearby children as “dirty little things.” She thinks they are mine and that I am not “controlling them properly.” I look to see two extremely clean, well-groomed, very wealthy appearing Asian children, a little girl and a little boy, who are laughing and talking to each other. I mostly hate kids and yet I can’t see anything wrong with their behavior. But I see it in her eyes.

Their reflection: Dirty. Little. Things.

LOLOLOLOL

The Expendables is an upcoming ensemble action/war film written by Dave Callaham and Sylvester Stallone, and directed by Stallone. Filming began on March 28, 2009, in Rio de Janeiro, New Orleans, and Los Angeles, and is expected to be released on August 13, 2010. The film pays tribute to the blockbuster action films of the 1980s and early '90s, and stars an array of action veterans from those decades, including Stallone himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Dolph Lundgren, Mickey Rourke, and Jet Li, as well as more recent stars such as Jason Statham, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, and Steve Austin.

[...] A team of highly-trained, dangerous mercenaries are sent on a mission to a South American country, with the objective to overthrow a cold-blooded dictator. As the mission begins, the mercenaries discover that the situation is not as it appears. The men find themselves trapped in a deadly game of deception.

lol right.

OH THERE'S MOAR: Sylvester Stallone in an interview: "And about the dictators, they're fascinating fellows. They're mad people. At the beginning they might have some king of philosophy, but then they show how insane they really are. And to build'em I've got inspiration in North Korea, Uganda, Cuba, El Salvador, Russia and some Central America Countries. I made a blend of them all. What you see in this movie is a mixture of real dictators."

[...]

Another SS interview: "I just felt that if you are going to do a story about a mercenary, which is always a fascinating character, you try to put them in a situation where he can find certain redemption. And usually it's going to a third world country where he sees people that are impoverished, people that can't defend themselves. He finds his own soul." THE ~THIRD-WORLD~: SAVING FOREIGN SOULS SINCE ALWAYS; THAT'S WHAT WE'RE HERE FOR. YOU'RE WELCOME.

SERIOUSLY, WE ARE NOT YOUR TRAGIC, IMPOVERISHED, DICTATOR-FILLED BACKDROP FOR YOUR UNCREATIVE PLOTS. FUCK YOU.

Not only that. For white mercenaries to find their souls.

brb, loling. This man is a jewel.

Aqrima admirably continued dealing with the annoying white feminists: honour killings in india.

a few years ago, i would have agreed with you. i would have been shocked and upset about this, and i would have been very angry about patriarchy and casteism in india. and i still am. i am much more upset about it than you know. you tell me i’m an evil person, that i’m excusing violence with complexity, and i’m writing this here to tell you that actually, the complexity only makes the violence sharper, more real. the complexity cannot erode the violence. it is the explanation, but it cannot be the excuse (credit to richard siken’s poem, snow and dirty rain, for that phrase). it cannot be the excuse, because i, we, live with this history. because i live with the knowledge that i grasped onto white amerika instead of paying attention to my history. because the violence of priding the west over a postcolonial state that the west carries the legacy of colonizing, and continues to colonize… because that violence is real. because the violence of what happened to nirupama pathak, and her fiance who remains unnamed throughout that article (because upper caste people are the only ones to talk to, didn’t you know? they’re nice and liberal, they talk about “old india”s and “new india”s and nice linear history “we shouldn’t be like this in the 21st century [we have to be more like you white western people, you’ve got it all right, yes yes we realize that now, sorry sorry]”) … because that violence is horrific. because she should not have died. because imagine what her fiance is living through now, with the knowledge that he is so wrong, so untouchable, that his lover deserved to be killed rather than marry him.

because i don’t like any entire marginalized culture, mine or anyone else’s, being completely written off. “archaic”. “conservative”. how do you know what is archaic and conservative? how do you know the history of caste violence? how do you know that history is linear and chronological, period? how do you know what changed with colonialism and what didn’t? how do you know about the oppression in pre-colonial times and the oppression in colonial times and the oppression in post-colonial times? how? how do you so easily take the apologia of upper-caste middle class privileged folks in india as the right thing, oh yes, at least they’re admitting that culture can be changed, at least they should try, blah blah blah blah. Because it makes you happy to hear that. It makes you happy to be told, over and over, affirmed, that your way is the right way. That you’ve got it all right. That you understand cultureS, so much so that you can make it one great culture monolith.

it’s very wonderfully ironic that you say “take it up with the NYT or coherently explain your point of view here”. wonderful use of the tone argument, i must say. (this is a more direct summary). also, you establish my point exactly. the point is, the new york times represents white amerika (mostly). so what you are telling me is that i, a south asian person, should have to tell the new york times to stop being racist and imperialist, because otherwise the new york times has the perfect right to do so. thank you for putting the onus on me, as a marginalized person.

[...]

and the thing is? violence is systemic. address the systemic issues, and maybe we have a fighting chance at making things better.

Via ontd_feminism: How to Write about Haiti, inspired on How to Write about Africa

For starters, always use the phrase 'the poorest country in the Western hemisphere.' Your audience must be reminded again of Haiti's exceptional poverty. It's doubtful that other articles have mentioned this fact.

You are struck by the 'resilience' of the Haitian people. They will survive no matter how poor they are. They are stoic, they rarely complain, and so they are admirable. The best poor person is one who suffers quietly. A two-sentence quote about their misery fitting neatly into your story is all that's needed.

[...]

The US Embassy and United Nations always issue warnings that demonstrations are security threats. It is all social unrest. If protesters are beaten, gassed, or shot at by UN peacekeepers, they probably deserved it for getting out of control. Do not investigate their constant claims of being abused.

It was so violent right after the January 2010 earthquake. 'Looters' fought over goods 'stolen' from collapsed stores. Escaped prisoners were causing mayhem. It wasn't necessary to be clear about how many people were actually hurt or died in fighting. The point is that it was scary.

Now many of those looters are 'squatters' in 'squalid' camps. Their tent cities are 'teeming' with people, like anthills. You saw your colleagues use these words over and over in their reports, so you should too. You do not have time to check a thesaurus before deadline.

Point out that Port-au-Prince is overcrowded. Do not mention large empty plots of green land around the city. Of course, it is not possible to explain that occupying US Marines forcibly initiated Haiti's shift from distributed, rural growth to centralized governance in the capital city. It will not fit within your word count. Besides, it is ancient history.

---

And just because I want to spam no more:

( Fairy Tail spoilers up to chapter 15 )

--

Writing this was painful. And took me a lot of time. Because I mostly copy and pasted html.

I blame ontd_feminism.

Man says he would never vote "guilty" if he were a jury in a rape case despite the evidence because menz are oprezzed by US's law. All the comments agree and consider him heroic because we live in a misandrist world. The whole site is a jewel. (Triggering for rape apologism, victim blaming and lot more shit I can't name.)

Also, there was this post featured about a white US senator saying white privileged was a myth because white people were impoverished.

Hmm. Some days.

When white feminists talk stupid shit about things they know nothing about and make stupid conclusions.

Via aqrima, white lady talks shit because she read an article about India in NY Times.:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/10/world/asia/10honor.html?src=me&ref=general

I, personally, do not feel that culture is an excuse for violence. In fact, I feel that there is no excuse for violence. Using religion and culture to excuse murder is an act of cowardice. Yet, still they continue…in the name of religion and tradition, etc.

What I find disgusting about this story—beyond the whole pointless death and human intolerance—is that the family changed their story multiple times. Changing your story in such a fashion over and over again is rather indicative of guilt. And an autopsy showing that the young woman suffocated…that, too, seems more like murder than suicide. Were there marks on the neck indicating that she had been hung? Was there rope? Did the rope have any of her DNA embedded in the threads from, you know, hair and skin that would have certainly been torn and irritated? Is there even any evidence that she hung herself, aside from the family’s changing stories?

And isn’t it suspicious that her “suicide” note suddenly appeared after they changed the story?

No, you cannot change society in one day. Ms. Pathak’s brother was right in that. But that doesn’t mean that culture cannot change at all. It can, and it will. Hopefully, one day, the outdated, ignorant, and conservative notion of honor killings will be gone and women will be one step closer to being safe and equal in the cultures that once advocated such archaic systems.

Ah, the condescending attitude and superiority of white people. Imagine if they actually bothered to educate themselves!

Aqrima has a wonderful response here:

you’re saying that this is done in the name of (outdated, archaic, conservative, ignorant) culture, and that is wrong. and some people say that this is what the culture says, and it is outdated, archaic, conservative and ignorant.

you’re working on the assumption that 1) there is some primal indian culture that we (indians, south asians) come from, and 2) that you know what it is.

and you don’t. you really, really don’t. i get the sense you (and the person you reblogged) are just another white feminist who thinks it’s okay to make blatantly racist and imperialist statements about our cultures, while you’re completely ignorant about the ways in which, for one, imperialism has shaped our cultures. made it so that we are in this bind where it’s either fundamentalism or modernity, and nothing. fucking. makes. sense.

ETA: White lady responds to Aqrima, after a bunch of nonsense about how she (White Lady) has right to talk: "excusing horrible violence on an innocent victim (a whole line of “but, but, but,” really?) makes you an evil person.."

Because she is so concerned about the killing happening in India. *throws up*

I would say that making fun of an Indian woman's culture while you stamp over a woman's death like that makes you an evil person. No one is fooled.

White lady, an Indian woman calling you on your racism while you pretend concern about a woman's death isn't "excusing a murder," far from it. And you making this straw man and slippery slope towards her and her culture is really awful and privileged.

You, white lady, aren't the one being killed there and won't ever be. You have no idea about these women lives beyond what you read in a NY Times article. So shut up.

Okay, apparently this ESPN guy didn't like Paraguay's play, he found it boring, which is understandable; but then he wrote this to apparently justify his dislike for Paraguayan play:

A fuckery that no one will make me put a proper name.

You might be pleasantly surprised to know that I've taken the time to learn more about your country these last few days, because I've been so intrigued by your seeming national capacity to take the fun out of everything, including the game I love.

Apparently, there are nearly 7 million of you, my dear Paraguayans, landlocked in the middle of South America, bored out of your minds. I understand that your capital is Asuncion and that your climate ranges from subtropical to semiarid. I'm thinking more of you must live in the semi-arid region than not, but I stand to be corrected.

[...]

I will say -- and I mean this -- that I was stunned to learn that you fended off Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay for six years, between 1864 and 1870, in the War of the Triple Alliance. That seems like a terrifically unfair fight, and I understand it was nearly the end of you. I'm glad it wasn't. I think the world would be poorer without Paraguay in it. I can trust only that you took some comfort in knowing that two-thirds of that Triple Alliance were sent packing in the quarterfinals along with you, and that Uruguay is only still here because Uruguayans, the lesser Guayans, are unsporting, heartbreaking thieves.

I'm sorry, white guy, for taking the fun of your hobbies by existing. You don't have idea how much anguish causes me to ruin the squee of some white Canadian guy because I breath.

You are talking, mocking and trivializing a war that ended in genocide, our genocide, a third world country genocide because... you don't like our football.

And the guy learned of Paraguay in like... a week. So he is a authority to mock a poor developing country's population. (Bored out of our minds? Oh, such a great comedy, you know. Because this isn't a country where people will wish they had some time to be bored instead of surviving. Unlike First World Asshats.)

Also, the fucking disgusting fetishizing that is happening because these white men find a Paraguayan model to be such a novelty.

I mean, I'm tired and don't want to go deep about this because then I will have to go deep about Spain and all the shit it also brought. But seriously white people? You make me so damn tired. You and your incapacity to understand basic and kinda intuitive political concepts that seriously aren't that hard to understand. Your arrogance, your inability to accept privilege, while common and normal, it make me completely and fucking sick out of my mind. And I put like this because I feel kinda nice. So please, get away from me unless you star to grasp some basic things. Like decency.

You also have to learn about history and political and economical context. That is kinda harder, but you need to before talking about "the inferiority" of Developing Nations. Yes, also, actual markets and global economy.

(I also ban and mock people. Ban and mock. Keep it in mind. I don't have "constructive conversations" that aren't really constructive. Just warning. If I hear a "you are generalizing and being just as racist!!" again it will be too soon.)

I so shouldn't be here, but.

ephemere, as always, just writes it most amazingly, The pomegranate lamp:

I wonder, truly, how some people who attempt to pass themselves off as compassionate and enlightened can say that speaking out against injustice should be leashed by the bounds of courtesy and the desire not to cause pain. I do not wonder that attitudes aligned with oppressive systems continue to be upheld; it is the system, and outrage is hapless against differentials of power.

There is talk of fear to speak. In my view, if what you have to say serves to further the damage and harm of the inequality, and your fear keeps your words locked in? Then be afraid. Because oppression is wrong.

But to be honest, you won't really need to be afraid. There may be backlash, maybe, and it may hurt you, but visit other sites, go into the world for a while, and they will reinforce the inequalities you're speaking. The system's got your back.

[...]

It's laughable -- vile -- to see people equating criticism with unfreedom, the anger of the oppressed with unsafety. They are nothing like each other. And those people who have been branded as "mobs", "sharks", "packs of wolves", are nothing like oppressive systems, because the vantage points from which they speak are those of, or in alignment with, the oppressed in the first place.

Don't speak to me of mobbing or of bullying or of internet debates as theaters of war. I have no power to exert any sort of force over those on the other side of the inequality. Whatever discomfort my words may engender, they present no danger because they have no power behind them. I say don't -- for what little it matters, because many people do, and do, and do. I wish you wouldn't. Please don't. (Colonize us. Use us. Dehumanize us. Dismiss us. Silence us.)

Don't speak to me of peace as holding myself in abeyance from fighting for the right to live without fear. Don't speak to me of courage, or bravery, or freedom. Bravery has nothing to do with why I am writing this. I write when I can because I can -- there are so many other times when I cannot. I write because I have to. Because, in very many ways, I am not free.

Why? Why can't fandom be a place where white people can be freely racist and POC can act like caring and patient educators for them?

We have to start learning that the single objective of showing our anger over, I don't know, trivializing the death of thousand real black people by using them as kink-material for white writers, has always been Making White People Learn! After all, their education is always above our dehumanization, our anger, and or feelings.

If they don't feel comfortable because we are upset at their racism, well, we have to stop acting so savagely. They won't care- well, they never cared int he first place, but we? We have to care about making them care. Otherwise, there is no point.

Them not paying attention to our feelings and not regarding us as human being is a secondary matter. Our priority always always has to be to not make them scared of voicing their, I'm sure, enlightening opinions.

Except no. And fuck you kindly. As you see, what you ask is not a two-way road. Respect people and then you may be entitled to their respect; dehumanize people... and well, they may call you out, you know. That thing you fear so much is not even comparable to, you know, the offense which is part again of our constant dehumanization. (Well, maybe it is comparable if you take into account that POC are not people.)

ETA: This is public, people, and I really don't care what you think about it. (Unless I screw up in something involves my privilege. Real privilege. That power thing you may not like to look at.) But this is still my place, and I will ban you if you annoy me with "reverse ism" shit. Yes, as you may have noticed by this post, I don't feel like educating random strangers.

I have been avoiding talking about the SPN shit because some of the responses this got made me sick to my stomach and I'm still damn busy.

What kind of bubble are some people living into? People. Context. Nuances. Do you know how many people, real people of color, did the Haiti's Earthquake kill early this year? And yet, you still think that the worst thing that could happen is "bringing your agenda into fandom." Instead of, you know, respecting a tragedy and its victims.

Dear fucking God, it's hardly the first time something like this has happened to fandom and yet people affected (marginalized people) have to smile and let the fucking white assholes go on with their kinks on their tragedies without saying anything because otherwise "would be stirring things up." Dehumanization of actual people? Secondary matters to privileged people's kinks.

Fucking privileged assholes. The sociopathy going on in some of these comments is amazing.

For the record, if you say that "showing anger over this is worst than the actual offense" you are a offense to my humanity. No argument.

Via the_future_modernes: Fashionably Colonized: Hybrid Vigor, Brazilian Models, and Global Ideas of Beauty

The smartly-written article takes an interesting turn – while the models associated with Brazil are overwhelmingly white, the country is beginning to embrace nonwhite women who fit their standards of beauty. And yet…

Despite those shifts, more than half of Brazil’s models continue to be found here among the tiny farms of Rio Grande do Sul, a state that has only one-twentieth of the nation’s population and was colonized predominantly by Germans and Italians.

Brazilians are equally perplexed:

The pattern creates a disconnect between what many Brazilians consider beautiful and the beauty they export overseas. While darker-skinned actresses like Juliana Paes and Camila Pitanga are considered among Brazil’s sexiest, it is Ms. Bündchen and her fellow southerners who win fame abroad.

“I was always perplexed that Brazil was never able to export a Naomi Campbell, and it is definitely not because of a lack of pretty women,” said Erika Palomino, a fashion consultant in São Paulo. “It is embarrassing.”

Read the comments.

You know, I could care less about the image "Brazil exports" or "what is presented to the Global beauty market (USA or Europe)," because articles like this are always about what we give to the first world, which of course is white because our ideal is your white supremacy! But this comment by moth:

I read an interview with Giselle (the white Brazilian supermodel) in Vogue in which she described trying to volunteer with an organization for Portugeese speakers in Boston (where she now lives.) In the article she talks about how she wanted to “save” the young impoverished girls she worked with, but she felt she was unable to because the girls were black and Latina and they saw her as white whereas she felt that there was no such thing as race or racial tension in Brazil because “everyone is mixed.” To me, it was a perfect example of Brazilian racial ignorance.

Giselle? There isn't such a thing as "racial tension because everyone is mixed"? Honey, you are the prove of that, aren't you.

Dear fucking God, now racism in Latin America passed from disgustingly blatant to "non-existent" because some white blue-eyed model living in Boston thinks so. Urg, urg, urg, urg.

Also, if you scroll down the comments, you will see how this woman's fail gets worse.

ETA: Also? The NYT article is full of shit. Just to leave things clear, "what many Brazilians consider beautiful." I'm kinda skeptical in that aspect. (Well, yeah, the women put as examples of "Brazil beauty" are very light-skinned, so it may be right after all.)

Deepa brings her struggles with dealing with white people. Yes, she isn't being PC about it, but she is being sincere.

.... ROFL.

ETA: Kynn also has some icons to share about her own exoticism.

Tracing this Body. Transsexuality, pharmaceuticals & capitalism is one of the most (if not the most) amazing, complex, and intersecting articles I have read. A must-read written in 2003 by Michelle O’Brien and still holds true and how. Seriously, I'm making a crime just quoting a bit, you have to read it (if you haven't already):

These battles over HIV, transgender health and drug use are real, with millions of people's lives on the line. Politics is changing fast around the world, as old resistance movements have disintegrated, and new forms of domination are deepening their entrenched authority. Capital flows more and more rapidly around the globe, while access to health care is strictly limited and regulated. Wars of healthcare, over the terrain of our bodies, are among the most significant political battles in the world today. Healthcare is a major site in defining, and transforming, what race and class domination mean in our day to day lives. This fight is so profound, so real, so important, precisely because it is the place where the three levels of flows come together: 1. those flows of T-Cells and hormones, of viruses and antivirals, of methadone and heroin, within our own bodies; 2. those flows of our communities, families and lives through our communities; and 3. those flows of capital and institutional power across the globe.

[...]

The politics of our bodies - as trans people, as drug users, as people living with HIV - require a sophisticated grasp of multiple contradictions. We are dependent on the very systems that oppress us. We make demands for change, and appropriate the refuse of capital for our own survival. We live in the flows, suffer in the flows, envision a new world in these flows.

Many theories of power and politics offer little to grapple with such a struggle of bodily survival. I grew up working in radical environmental movements in Oregon, using direct action to defend ancient forests. The anticapitalist analysis of many such activists relied on a fanatical commitment to purity and an attempt at a total refusal to participate or be complicit in any form of corporate rule. Veganism, do-it-yourself punk ethics, buying natural and local, Lesbian-Feminist separatism, back-to-land self-sustaining agriculture and especially eco-primitivism and other movements common around Eugene, Oregon, all frequently rely, to various extents, on a commitment to non-participation in global capitalism and certain idealized notions of purity. Since then, I've encountered similar phenomena in many political spaces, from AIDS denialists working in animal rights organizing to the MOVE family of Philadelphia, from genderqueer denunciations of medicalized body modification to the glorification of drop-out travelers by the anarchist writing network known as CrimethInc.

[...]

These languages of purity and non-participation are frequently counterposed by the glorifying ideological cheerleaders of capitalist domination. Every major U.S. newspaper, every president and senator, every corporate trade journal is aggressively advancing the absurd notion that capitalism is the best avenue to manage and stop human suffering. Believing that state power and corporate tyranny will somehow make a decent world have a major impact on the popular discourses of science, technology and industrial production. Such pro-capitalist perspectives are of no use to me.

Instead, I've tried through this paper to trace other ways of thinking through the relationship between my body and capitalism. Each step, I've tried to simultaneously recognize my participation and complicity, and trace the possibilities of resistance and liberation. In trying to describe the complexity of these relationships, I've found inspiration in Donna Haraway's essay "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century." A truly remarkable text, Haraway's essay brilliantly cut through polarized debates characterizing science as either a wonderful tool of capitalist improvement or the evil bane of patriarchy. Instead, Haraway describes the figure of the cyborg. The cyborg is the bastard child of the patriarchal realms of capitalism, nature and technoscience. Rather than reproduce their systems of command, control and communication, the cyborg ran radically challenge, undermine and resist domination. The cyborg is a new vision of feminist consciousness, a radical means of relating to technology and science. The cyborg is never pure, never free of the systems it subverts, never belonging to a realm before or outside of capitalist technoscience and patriarchy. But the cyborg is also a revolutionary, an effective, empowered, conscious being that reworks, redirects and restructures the oppressive systems that birthed it.

This vision of the feminist cyborg has been very useful and inspiring to me in understanding my own body and in struggling to the liberation of trans people. Like the cyborg, we are both complicit in and a challenge to the biomedical industries. We are drastically rebuilding our bodies with the aid of technology, surgery and drugs. And we are doing this all on our own terms, committed to our own well being, striving to our own liberation. Far from dupes of doctors or the crude escapists of ecoprimitivism, we are living amidst the systems we are always subverting. Trans people live in that hybrid edge of technology, science, nature and capital that Haraway correctly and brilliantly identifies as a tremendously power space of resistance and movement.

We are all in the midst of structures of tremendous violence, oppression and exploitation. There is no easy escape or pure distance from them. Our ability to resist, in this world, at this time, is deeply inseparable from our ongoing connection to these very systems. But resist we do. Every day, in so many ways, we are all struggling towards a new world of liberation, healing and respect.

Here is Donna Haraway's 1991 essay: A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century, if you want to read it.

ontd_feminism was discussing that Shakira's song for World Cup, and even if that discussion made me damn tired (seriously, what the fuck is this shit?), it also made me glad that song wasn't the official one (I heard it was going to be or something?) because I'm not going to hear it over and over again on TV (well, yes, I'm going to hear it over and over, but not that much at least). So I decided to google the lyrics of K'naan song, "Wavin' Flag," that I'm sure most of you have heard already. A lot, probably. So, even if of course the song talks about struggle and poverty, I loved this:

So many wars, settling scores,
Bringing us promises, leaving us poor,
I heard them say, 'Love is the way,'
'Love is the answer,' that's what they say

But look how they treat us, make us believers,
We fight their battles, then they deceive us,
Try to control us, they couldn't hold us,
'Cause we just move forward like Buffalo Soldiers.

So much for romanticism. I'm so not going to mind hearing that song all over this month.

dark_agenda's challenge: the Racebending Revenge Ficathon.

Re-write one or more white characters in the fandom(s) of your choice as chromatic/non-white/PoC, in a story of at least 500 words, with some acknowledgment of how the racial difference would make a difference to the story being told.

That's all kinds of awesome.

If you are going to pretend that stereotypes aren't something extremely ugly and insulting when used on minorities who are devalued in a society dominated by people who love to discriminate against them... well, I have nothing. You know you aren't being naive.

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The problem with some anti-rape campaigns is they they "show women naked, and they make men think more of sex, and that's bloody stupid". Please kindly kill humanity, thank you. Apparently, men can't look at women's skin without wanting to rape women.

Also, something I totally forgot to quote due to rage is the truly good critique Cara does to that poster:

On the one hand, I really, really love the focus on affirmative consent rather than passive consent or the lack of a “no.” I’m frankly tired of “no means no.” I hate the idea that someone has to say no to get someone to stop touching them, rather than say yes before someone feels the right to touch them in the first place. I like that the poster actually defines consent as the presence of a yes rather than the absence of some kind of revocation of consent that is otherwise constantly presumed to be present. “She didn’t say no” is an incredibly repulsive defense[*], and one that seems to only be growing in popularity and acceptability. It’s very important to combat that.

On the other hand, I find the “no entry” symbol and further pun regarding “entry” in the text to be glib and all around off-putting. Rape isn’t about “entry,” it’s about violation, and that can take many forms. And it really just seems like the wrong time for sexual innuendo and wordplay.

Further, while I don’t find the image to be overtly sexual, that doesn’t mean I don’t find it objectifying. I’m tired of seeing women’s bodies detached from their person, women being represented by their bodies rather than their faces, and women’s bodies just all around being used as symbols rather than treated like they belong to us. I’m tired of the idea that if we don’t show a face, it’ll be more universal — personally, I think that showing a face is a much better reminder that women are people, with thoughts, and feelings, and minds of our own. Beyond that, if we are going to use women’s body parts as representations for women, I’m tired of seeing the same precisely shaped body parts over and over again. I’m tired of the idea that only a thin woman with a flat stomach and no cellulite is “good looking enough” to be raped. And while I think that it would have been just as problematic, if not more so, to feature a woman of color in this kind of disembodied, headless, and objectified position, it is incredibly frustrating and disturbing that white women are so persistently presented as the only real victims of rape.

*Because you know how all people can say "no" or even consent. Heck, some rapists even look for people who can't consent (drunk, unconscious, disabled people) to rape.

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Reborn fandom, as every fucking week of my life; fuck you you and your misogyny. Thank you.

( Dear Reborn. Spoilers for latest chapters )

Since people from certain Developed Countries (I can be passive-aggressive also, hur hur) love the "we are in a POST RACIAL SOCIETY" shit and stuff, via Sociological Images (and watch out for ableist language of the reporters):







Dude, why do I know someone will bring the argument of "it doesn't prove anything, they just showed the kids who grew up with Nazi parents/whose parents were self-haters, the rest of us are still post-racial!!" or something? And you know what? As if (it's not like I don't see you everyday loving "the pretty white people!!").

I'm just tired.

As you know, I'm kinda busy right now (or should be), but I'm just finding kinda... something all these white people coming out to say how Awful and Insulting is to have false accusations of racism directed at them! How their reputation will be tainted if they HAPPEN to be victims of something like that!

So, to do something different, I'm going to write about black football players in Europe. Because people obviously don't want to talk about aversive racism. So I will talk about Overt Racism. Like, happening right now.

So I will write about players like Samuel Eto'o. Samuel Eto'o and his career in Spain, and how white media and public react with these incidents, feeding up a very complex systemic issue. And white people, cry me a river. (And yeah, what happens in these games is part of our reality and important. Just because I know someone will come out and say, "oh, but these people are all just like that! It's part of the game!! Boys will be boys!! I don't take them seriously!!! yaddayadda!!" as if, you know, it doesn't impact real people. So I will not hit you because I'm a good girl. A good girl behind a monitor who can't reach you.)

Yeah, this is just a Wikipedia's article, I have other things, but I can't do this right now:

[...] However, infuriated again by Zaragoza fans' racist chants the next season, Eto'o attempted to walk off the pitch in protest. His teammates intervened and convinced him to continue playing. Video of the incident captured him saying "No más" ("No more") as he walked to the sidelines.

Due to ongoing racism from La Liga crowds, Eto'o no longer brings family members, especially his children, to matches. "It is something that has affected me personally. I think players, leaders, and the media have to join forces so that no one feels looked down upon because of the colour of their skin. At this moment in time I prefer my children don't go to football matches. In the stands they have to listen to things that are difficult to explain to a child. It is better they aren't exposed to it."

I tend to forget these things so I write them. But someone also remind me when my exams are done. Because I fail. (God, I hope I don't forget.) I'm off. For real now.