Thanks to Mako who made me notice this:

Bita Ghaedi Deportation Cancelled!

[...] the British High Court granted Ghaedi interim relief pending a renewed application to apply for judicial review, while the European Court of Human Rights put a ban on her deportation.

As a woman who fled her husband as well as a political dissident, Bita Ghaedi has legitimate reasons to fear an "honour killing" if deported back to Iran. In his opinion, Justice Nichols stated that the British Home Office ignored a preponderance of evidence highlighting her very real claims to asylum.

Maria Rohaly from Mission Free Iran writes that mainstream media silence, in addition to dereliction of duty from organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, only hurt the case. Still, this case is a testament for how a small number of dedicated people can bring international attention to the horrific ways in which asylum seekers and refugees are treated by developed nations.

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Oh, Hollywood. When you think it couldn't get worse. Well, it always gets worse.

Genghis Khan? Mickey Rourke.

I kid you not. Oh, how I wish I was.

You know things like anime adaptations don't stand a chance if these fuckers can't even respect a historical figure who belongs to another nation.

Regardless of how I feel about Renee, this isn't funny:

But what the fuck is this shit?

Apparently, the not so smart ONTD crew felt all butthurt (you can see some jewels there) because SHE DARED to say "bad things" about Sandra Bullock adopting a black child (which was pretty spot on), and then went at her blog to troll her with racist, ableist, sexist shit. Because white people can't be racist but they can go to stalk and insult a black woman who criticized a white celebrity.

Pffft, okay this is kinda funny:

From ONTDSupporter:

I'm not an ONTD member but I read it and I'm a supporter. You are one dumb b*tch I'm sorry to say. I too came here to read the disgusting piece you wrote on a woman saving a child's life (Sandra Bullock adoption story) but refrained from commenting because I could not believe the amount of ignorance and hatred in you and your supporters. I let the "disgusting ONTD trolls" put you in your place. But after reading this on ONTD I just had to say something. So here it goes: [...]

Then this person writes three long paragraphs with a bunch of nonsense that goes like: Renee is feeling "pissed" because ONTD people "outnumber her" (how old are these people anyway?), she has to STFU about this Sandra Bullock/ONTD issue, but at the same time she has to accept that people have different views because this is the internet! And 3) she is an ignorant bitch. She doesn't know about Sandra Bullock and other white celebrities Holly Mission like this person who "wrote an essay" (by their own words) clearly does. No, wait, 3) is apparently about stealing, what it is and what isn't, and how she is a hypocrite because she has downloaded a song. (Yeah, I got confused there for a moment, even when I disagree with Renee, uhm, I don't think any of those things are even equivalent. ETA: Wait! Apparently they just assumed she downloaded music and movies. I mean, she obviously did those things because this is the internet, and it serves their purposes. So, uhm, she is an hypocrite. Because, in their minds, Renee downloads music and watch movies from the internet for free like you and me. Even when she never actually wrote a post implying she did those things -that I can remember-, but she had to! Probably Lady Gaga's songs*.)

You have to love these people and their simplified lives. I guess in the world of celebrity gossiping there are no nuances due to politics, issues are never complicated by differences of power, economics, history- heck, race is apparently a thing people just use to oppress the white beautiful actresses!

So, feel for white rich ladies and their inalienable right to adopt kids of color. But women of color on the internet have to shut up about the issue and their own articles published on a comm for white hipsters who love celebrities from USA.

And for once, I don't agree with her in that post about linking without permission, and I don't think I will ever, but seriously? Seriously?

* Nothing to do with my position about her post on that aspect. She probably has her own reasons, I have no idea, I still disagree with her. And with the trolls that say not wanting your blog article posted in other sites has to make you condemn music and mp3 free downloads. Heck, I'm not even interested in discussing that issue, I'm just pretty amused that they are accusing her of something they don't even know she does.

dagas_isa writes about Liar Game's manga here. Not reading much because I don't want to spoil myself, but so have to continue with this manga.

--

Via the_future_modernes: Examining interethnic prejudice in a racist society:

I’ve heard other versions of people of color vs. other people of color. I’ve only heard these from white people, and I’ve heard them any of a number of times. When touring Nanjing with a bunch of white people, three separate individuals made the point of approaching me to ask if I knew about the Rape of Nanjing. I’d learned about it when I was in middle school. I remember specifically because a group of us went to the university library where we had privileges to find out exactly why the Chinese hate the Japanese.

And there I was again, being told by white people that the Chinese hate the Japanese.

[...]

On the other hand, the number of times I’ve been assaulted by racism (sometimes literally) at the hands of white people (again, sometimes literally) are too many to count. In fact, some incidents I have blocked completely out of my consciousness.

Why then the fear of people of color?

[...]

Au napptural commented as follows about the case in which two 18-year-old African American men were charged with an attack on two Asian Americans:

Strange thing, I went to read the comments, and instead of the usual “it wasn’t a hate crime, just a crime” diatribe, nearly all 1000 of the commenters were roundly wishing death on the assailants, complete with racist rhetoric. I guess if the assailant is black and the vic isn’t, it’s an outrage after all, even if the vic isn’t white. Not trying to derail, but a big difference from the case of the Asian men being pushed into river or the Mexican teenager beaten by the white teenagers, don’t you think?

Brandon Piekarsky and Derrick Donchak, white men who killed a Latino immigrant, set upon their victim as members of a pack. But nobody talked about “wilding.” Nobody talked about how those white people are. (Because we don’t have any kind of slur for white people that compares to the n-word.) They talked about the altar boy and the honor student.

I am not excusing the African American 18-year-old who killed Tiansheng Yu, but I don’t think that attack was nearly as violent or as prolonged as the one instigated by Piekarsky and Donchak. Yu apparently fell and hit his head on the pavement. Luis Ramirez was beaten, kicked and punched, including vicious kicks to the head while he was lying helpless on the ground. Piekarsky and Donchak were convicted of simple assault. The mitigating factor? The victim was an undocumented immigrant. That, and the fact that Piekarsky and Donchak are not hampered by fears of criminality that are explicitly tied to their race and deeply ingrained in our collective psyche.

[...] read one story about Tiansheng Yu’s widow, which briefly mentioned that members of the African American community had gathered to support her. But it is not the major story out there. And despite multiple attacks on Asian Americans, very few news stories have connected the dots. Many insist that it’s not about race.

Here’s a recent article by SF Examiner writer Erin Sherbert. It is surprising in that it talks about the tension between communities. But it does not talk about the work the communities are doing together.

Uhm, I believe some African-Americans would be more than ready to teach you some things about genetics, sweetheart.

The irony of the woman talking about intelligence.

Dear Fucking Shit. And the that Law site, in which the poster, who really doesn't understand the outrage (oh, white racist people), wants to have a "conversation in which is explained how black people aren't genetically inferior [on intelligence, no less] to white people," (besides being awfully wrong, dude, I think those things you are taught in school when you learn that, uhm, people from different races, you know, can have kids!) and the comments on it. Can people be that stupid? Seriously, what in the fucking hell?

So. Is there a gene that predisposes white people of being racist assholes also? (And please, people, I know the answer of that, okay.)

Oh God. I want to marry this post. It's amazing how it really really really really talks about the situations of developing countries. I was so going, "OMG yes!" while reading it. It's a post about a complex socioeconomic situation as well as it is about fiction:

ephemere, No country for strangers

First things first: specific points, based on the aforementioned perspective. Charles Tan talks about the "small but growing awareness of the literature of other cultures" as a "liberty that occurred only because of humanity's continued struggle for 'enlightenment'". I find this exceedingly ironic when taken in light of the past history of the Philippines and of the present state of education in the country. I was very aware of the literary classics of other cultures when I was growing up, and I don't doubt this applies to many members of my generation who had access to the same educational resources I did. Most of my books as a child were simplified versions of books by authors such as Dumas, Stevenson, Alcott, Carroll, and others. In high school we were required to make ourselves familiar with Shakespeare, Hugo, Poe, Marlowe, Steinbeck, etc; our school's reading room was dominated by British, French, and American writers. We were supposed to know the figures of speech and the literary conventions used by these writers -- so where does "small but growing" come from? We, of the upper and middle classes, who had the means to access "superior" educational materials, were immersed in this from childhood. This is not an expression of unalloyed liberty to progress further toward 'enlightenment'. It is part of an educational system that was to a large extent instituted during the American occupation, whose so-called benevolent rule has not been fully extricated from either the public consciousness or our political decisions up to this very day. It is an outgrowth of a dominance that may have been thought to have eased when we were 'granted' our independence, but has in fact never disappeared, only become more subtle in its influence on our psyches.

[...]

I also find the parenthetical remark regarding migration to the U.S. as "typically a dream" rather problematic. It is true that many Filipinos migrate to other countries, among them the U.S., for various reasons. However. These patterns are not confined to "poverty-stricken" Filipinos (many of whom are not so much struck with it as trapped in a system that encourages sick, downspiraling cycles of negative feedback from which it is excruciatingly difficult to escape). And to say that migration is a dream, even for these people, is to denigrate, with a casual, offhand remark, the human cost -- in terms of separation from family members and loved ones who can't migrate; in terms of leaving behind all one has ever known; in terms of starting over with very little; in terms, even, of not wanting to leave, except that staying has become untenable and thus going seems like the choice that will offer a better standard of living -- associated with migration. It is to trivialize the weight of the choice. Even with how difficult life is here, especially for the poor classes, leaving is not costless, it is not always a dream, and to typify it as one is insulting both to those who have gone and borne the cost of going and those who have stayed and borne the cost of staying. What is typically a dream? Living a better life. And that is not, by default, going to the U.S.

YES. Make "U.S.," Spain or another European country and you have my country.

In the case of the Philippines as it's portrayed in work written by non-Filipinos, assumptions do dominate and skew these portrayals. It isn't a rare occurrence, and the assumption isn't always so obvious as to be instantly identifiable. One assumption I find particularly galling is the idea that if something works in more developed countries such as the U.S., it should work here, too; thus an array of well-meaning foreigners touting ideas about freedom and justice and showing that if only one person is brave enough to speak out against the system, change will happen. Look, I don't doubt that speaking out is important. I don't want to diminish, in any way, the significance of courage in a society such as this. But you have to consider that the institutions here are very different from those commonly found in more developed countries. The rule of law, the democratic process, the essential functions of government -- these are broken in ways that it is very difficult to communicate to people from developed countries, because they assume that certain defaults apply.

[...]

I will not say: no foreigners allowed. That is a rather horrible thing to say considering an overwhelming tendency here to welcome foreigners with open arms and bend over backwards for them, at the cost of discriminating against our fellow Filipinos. It is a statement that assumes we have the power to say such a thing and enforce such a rule when we, well, don't. "No foreigners allowed" is a fantasy -- a short-sighted, narrow-minded, twisted fantasy, but a fantasy nonetheless.

Instead I will say: this is no country for strangers. This is not a people that can be known by observation alone, without the risk of actual engagement. This is no land where you can set yourself apart and then delude yourself with claims that comprehension naturally comes with high-minded goals and noble intentions to enlighten a system whose only fundamental flaw is ignorance of your ways. This is not a place that needs more foreigners coming in to visit, then taking away with them their misconceptions and their privileged judgments -- because we have been misrepresented enough, not just in the international community but also amongst ourselves, and false categorizations and claims about who we are and where we came from and where we should go are unneeded and shouldn't be welcomed.

[...]

So (and I address this now to the theoretical audience of those on the other, privileged end of the inequality) if you, as a white person, are afraid of writing about us: then be afraid. Carry in your heart the fear of doing further injustice to a people into whose blood oppression has become so incorporated that our institutions and our media echo with the dual strains of self-loathing and adulation for those who are not us.

Dear God. I just... love it. So much.

Here is a Facebook group to recommend: Stop Racism in Spanish-language TV and Media.

Recibí esto de Carlos Quiroz. Si pueden también denuncien estos grupos (ya que Facebook no tuvo problema para quitar el de Racebending...):

Organización afro peruana LUNDU recibe amenazas de violencia después de suspensión de personaje racista “Negro Mama“ en Lima [VIDEO]

La organización LUNDU Centro Afroperuano de Estudios y Promoción, ubicada en Lima, ha denunciado que está siendo objeto de amenazas verbales de violencia, a través de mensajes recibidos vía telefónica, email, correo e internet.

[...]

Mónica Carrillo, la directora de LUNDU y Sergio Molina, el director de prensa, confirman vía email que hay hasta cinco grupos de Facebook que promueven odio y racismo contra los indígenas y afro peruanos, sumando un total de más de 8,000 miembros en conjunto:

"La mayoría de estos sitios web tienen mensajes que son extremadamente violentos y racistas, incluso hay una página de Facebook con mi nombre, y esto me hace pensar que yo podría estar expuesta a situaciones de violencia física" denuncia Mónica Carrillo.

Please report these groups for abuse, the reason is "Racism" obviously, even if you don't understand Spanish, the pictures are pretty obvious:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/El-Negro-mama/126689486888?ref=nf

http://www.facebook.com/pages/NO-SUSPENDAN-AL-NEGRO-MAMA-los-de-LUNDU-solo-son-NEGROS-ACOMPLEJADOS/117448921598747?ref=ts

http://www.facebook.com/pages/No-a-la-censura-de-la-Paisana-Jacinta-y-del-negro-Mama/110362488983249?ref=ts

http://www.facebook.com/pages/DEJEN-TRABAJAR-Al-negro-mama-la-paisana-jacinta-/108705192485333?ref=ts

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Y-porque-no-censuran-a-Monica-Carrillo-por-censurar-al-negro-mama/113177932036784

Debbie Reese in the comments of Following up on "What Neil Gaiman said..." pretty much sums it up:

We can explain Gaiman’s remarks, and, then, in the spirit of good will, move on from the remarks.

We can explain away “the only good Indian is a dead Indian” in LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE. (Explanation for that phrase is "well, that’s what people thought back then.” To which we can ask "all people thought that? The Osages thought that? The Cherokees? The Pueblos? And all the Democrats and Republicans, too?")

We can explain away "sitting Indian style" and "Indian giver" and "wild Indians" and, I imagine, just about any innocuous or derogatory or demeaning or ignorant phrase/idea about American Indians.

And then we can move on.

But who is the "we" that is going to move on?

I move about in this world as a Pueblo Indian woman who notices, wherever I go and whatever I am doing, the ways that American society stereotypes American Indians.

Those stereotypes reflect a massive body of misinformation about who we were, and who we are.

You can say (to the Debbie Reese's that point to examples of these things) "get a life" or "quit taking offense" or "do something more important with your life" etc. etc. etc. (and those of you who've gone to my first post about Gaiman's remarks) know that people said precisely those things.

They aren't the first ones to say things like that; I've heard that sort of thing many, many times before. I am very strong, however, so those challenges don't hurt me.

But all the remarks ("Indian giver" etc.) that a Native child encounters every day, have a different effect on that child than they do on me. Children are more vulnerable in their identity, their sense of well-being.

Neil Gaiman's fail caught Will Sh****ly and his faithful bigots attention. So as you can imagine, it has all the racist and creepy stalkerish (looking for information about some people's real lives) fail you would expect from these people. But now they are spending their time also attacking Kynn's gender identity (in the entry where he apparently is teaching Pam Noles about Malcolm X by the way, yeah I'm not capable of reading that but just needed a laugh today). [Edit because Jesus Fucking Christ: Oh for fuck's sake, I removed the link because Sh****ly is making use of the attention that thread is receiving to keep outing and showing his stalkerish tendencies towards coffeeandink, his favorite target, who has no relevance in the discussion at hand. No relevance, I tell you. Damn creepy man. I don't think his blog is that hard to find on google if you so want to see it, but not going to link it here. You can go and read coffeeandink's explanation of the issue, which, by the way, still has nothing to do with the original discussion we are having here, but the man just saw this like an opportunity to bring it back.]

Here at some of the quotes on that thread about Kynn's gender identity:

Some shitty human being in Sh***ly blog:

Yeah, I'm not going to be nice to Kynn about that, especially as I have to imagine he thinks he's a girl dragon inside or some shit. That's about his speed.

Sh****ly:

When did Kynn become a woman? I refer to her as a woman because I believe in common and uncommon courtesy, but when speaking of the time when she was male, that male pronoun has to be appropriate.

Those who knew Kynn as a male might well think of her that way, just as someone's mental image of a person may be of a dark-haired person, though the person is now gray-haired. Identity is tricky. I don't get bent out of shape when old friends call me Bill.

Yeah, the brilliance is mind-blowing. I know.

Oh, nothing is anyone's business. But if you knew Kynn as male, it seems to me it's right to refer to him then and her now. And if you don't know when Kynn transitioned, that would suggest any reference to Kynn in the past should be male, while Kynn in the present should be female.

As for your second point, yes and no. A mind is a mind, no matter what the body, unless you're a sexist asshole.

Shitty human being again:

Yeah, well, having had to deal with the asshole for a long time, I prefer to believe he just strapped on being trans because he really, really, really, really always wanted to be a persecuted minority. And now he is one, presto!

Fuck that guy, right up his missing vajayjay.

Also, shitty human being is being all "I do not like Kynn, so obviously Kynn isn't trans. So I'm not transphobic, I met a trans woman who liked me once."

For the record, DO NO ENGAGE WITH ANY OF THESE PEOPLE.

I just want to show that this is what happens when marginalized people dare to talk against oppression. You see how vulnerable trans women are and how their bodies and identities are ridiculed by cis, white, straight men when they denounce privilege and problematic behavior.

Kynn is a white woman, so these people used part of her identity they could attack without any guilt to show superiority towards her anti-racism discourse. Because we know that mocking trans people's identities is not only acceptable, but encouraged and rewarded in today's society.

ETA: Something that I think is very important to notice is how Kynn talking against oppression was such a great threat for these people that they decided to put her in danger. We all know how the "man in a dress" rhetoric is used in today's world. (People may said I accuse them of putting there "things they aren't saying," but really how much in a bubble you have to live to think this couldn't end in transphobic violence, specially when these people say they personally know her. Heck, they just need to talk about a trans woman that way for someone more violent to hear it and the situation could be really dangerous. That's why everything we do has an impact, our actions never interacts with vacuum. But you know how Kynn just want to be oppressed. Like, right, how many cis women do you know who are "claiming" to be trans women even online? As you can see, people like these specimens make society a really hateful place for trans women.)

Relevant: stoneself: the cost of speaking up.

Willow writes: Not Your Cabana Girl.

Watching television I've come across a code I hadn't really parsed before "They were so WARM & WELCOMING". It's a phrase I hear being used by whites, predominantly white USians, to describe the non-white individuals and how they were treated when they vacationed/honeymooned in a particular place. Given what I've been watching, it's usually them describing why they want to go back, or buy a house there, etc.

But I find myself thinking that 'WARM & WELCOMING' is code. Because it doesn't seem to occur to these individuals that being 'WARM & WELCOMING' to tourists is a JOB. Sometimes it's part of a specific job description as with hotel staff. But sometimes it's a national job description, wherein the job is being a native who's aware of what contributes to the country's GNP.

[...]

Charles Tan is essentially saying (and do note I've already made it clear I think he lacks reading comprehension and the ability and resources to be part of conversations I want to have) that people aren't being 'WARM & WELCOMING'toward white writers who make the decision (and effort) to write about something other than cultures that have been embraced as being white (Euro-Celtic-Med Cultures).

Apparently white writers who write about something other than these 'embraced as white 'cultures, should not be criticized, evaluated, analysed and told when they didn't reach the bar. Because they're taking a vacation in that culture and handing out large tips so they have a righteous expectation that reactions be 'WARM & WELCOMING'.

ciderpress talks about hipster racism, stereotypes, racism against East-Asian people and she links to a fucking awesome video

This is what happens when people steeped in white privilege make jokes about racism with the victims of racism, rather than the racists, the butt of the jokes. This is why people steeped in white privilege don't really know how to make "jokes" about race that non-white/chromatic/poc think are funny. This is what happens when apologists try to wave away critique of race issues in real life, in entertainment and pretend there isn't a problem, pretend it doesn't contribute to society, to culture, to our every day lives. Racist speech in the guise of jokes becomes okay. Racism becomes okay. The "Other Asian" joke is funny and okay because it shows what an awful human being Sue Sylvester is! Will Schuester's Other Asian "joke" is a call-back, we didn't even notice how dehumanising it is, Mr. Schu is a "good" guy being funny to show that he "gets it"! It's okay because it's "ironic", it's meta, the show itself treats him like "Other Asian" anyway, they don't say his name very often, he doesn't speak, has no means of recourse, even after the racist speech directed at him several times, he's just there to be the other Asian and fill the diversity quota, the character and the actors are totally okay with it!

Fucking Awesome Video:



And I have to thank her for linking this article: Hipster Racism. I wanted to share it a time ago, but lost it.

Hipster racism involves making derogatory comments with a racial basis in an attempt to seem witty and above it all. Specifically, the idea is to sound ironic, as in “I’m allowed to say this because of course I’m not racist, so it’s funny.” It’s an aspect of a larger part of the hipster culture, which wants to seem jaded and urbane and oh-so-witty. Using language which is viewed as inflammatory or not appropriate is supposed to push the boundaries and make someone look edgy, but it only really comes across that way to people who buy into that system. To everyone else, it’s just racist.

The thing about using racist content in an “ironic” context is that it still perpetuates racist ideas, and it is, in fact, racist. While people may ardently claim that they are not racist, the people who engage in hipster racism are overwhelmingly white and middle class, and they clearly have some unaddressed racial issues which are being subverted in their attempts to be edgy. Sometimes, they are actually explicitly racist, and they are using hipster racism as a way of presenting their racism in a way which will be acceptable within their social groups.

Hipster racism often hides under the unassailable guise of satire. People who suggest that something is racist, and not actually funny, are told that they obviously just don’t get it, and that the whole point of humour is to push boundaries. They are told that the racism is so obvious and overstated that it’s meant to be laughed at, and that people are laughing at the racism and the racists, not supporting the ideas which are supposedly being mocked. But, oddly enough, a lot of racist satire doesn’t read that way, and it ends up just being racist, full stop.

Uppity Brown Woman: My mother did not have a choice in having me

As my mother explained to me, I felt a familiar sadness inside of me. She told me that she eventually decided she couldn’t go through with it because it would be too big of a shame on her, and she didn’t want to commit a sin, even though giving birth meant gambling with financial ruin. She had internalized the shaming of women who had abortions that it impeded her own decision-making process. Certainly, she wasn’t forcefully coerced into having an abortion (or coerced out of having one), which I find dominates discussions about abortions, and for good reason. But, the culture of shaming matters too. I don’t want to live in a world like this. If it did not break several laws of the universe, I wish I could have been there to support my mother, comfort her, and tell her that whatever decision she made, to terminate or not to terminate, had to be made for what was best for her, not for what other people thought of her.

Often, you see anti-choicers relaying stories from ‘abortion survivors’, or those whose mothers made the decision to not abort (therefore everyone should). Do they want to hear my story? Unlikely. They don’t want to accept that they forgot about my rights after I was born. Every day, I have to live with the fact that my mother felt shamed out of getting an abortion. This was not a choice. The option was there for her, but she did not take it, even though she wanted to, because of the rhetoric and stigma surrounding abortion – sinful, devilish, shameful. While she says now that she doesn’t regret having me, I cannot be anything but pro-choice. I do not take pride in being the product of a forced pregnancy.

---

In other issues, wonderful Deepa as always: An Open Letter to Charles Tan

But transcultural traffic is hardly such an egalitarian affair. You say: "That there is a small but growing awareness of the literature of other cultures is, in my opinion, a liberty that only occurred because of humanity's continued struggle for "enlightenment" but this flies in the face of a vast body of historical evidence that cultural currency has been a tool of capitalist trade and colonial enterprise. Furthermore, by whose standards are you defining awareness of such literature "small"? There are many Indians who will tell you about Rustam and Sohrab, about Laila and Majnu--stories not actually from our subcontinent. And as Fatemeh Keshavarz points out, Iran has a long history of translating books into Persian.

[...] I do not understand how you can consider writers to be a proletariat worthy of defending against the elite excesses of their readers. Racefail was primarily about the impact of books on readers and how we saw the world, whether we aspired to write ourselves or not. Critiquing a book's faults because we find it hurtful, offensive, unresearched or otherwise lacking in craftsmanship is something we do in our free time, without payment, out of a sense of community with others who may have struggled against the same issues. To demand that such criticism place the needs of supporting authors above our own needs as readers devalues us.

One last thing - you say in the beginning of your essay that ethnocentrism is "a flaw that a lot of cultures fall prey to (Germany being the primary culprit during World War II)".

I strongly urge you to reconsider this statement. Germany was certainly not the primary culprit of ethnocentrism during World War II, given the glorification of the British Empire and the neo-colonial national pride of the U.S., or indeed, any of the ethnocentric strains within the patriotic anti-colonial movements in large swathes of Asia and Africa. If Germany is to be accused of being the primary culprit of practising anything, it is Anti-Semitism and genocide on an industrialised scale never seen before, though both have happened before and since in many other nations and cultures.

...and how Native Americans really don't live on perpetual genocide.

Via ithiliana:

Making the connections: Sexual Violence in Native Communities.

Now even if I wanted to think that way and only stick to say sexually transmitted infections or abortion rights, I really can’t. Why? Because I’m Native, and as such the existence of violence in our communities, especially against our women, exists at rates that are extremely abhorrent and exceedingly high. We HAVE to talk about it all because to not talk about is to ignore some 80% of the population of our women who, for example, have experienced intimate partner violence, or the over 90% of our people who are deeply feeling the effects of residential/mission/boarding school which can sometimes result in different types of violence against oneself and others.

[...] First of all – isn’t the fact that Native American women experience violence almost 3 times more than any other group of women in the United States, 86% of the time by non-Native men – an inherently cross-sectional feminist issue? I don’t mean one that gets the occasional blog post every now and then, or gets centre mainstream feminist stage when it’s convenient, especially with statements like “Oh wow, Iook at these numbers – we didn’t even know about this!” HOW is it that you don’t know? Sure the Native American/American Indian/Alaska Native population is just over 1% of the population in the United States, and in Canada the Aboriginal population is roughly 3%, but with rates like these, say in Canada where there are over 500 missing and murdered Aboriginal women, that’s equivalent to some 18 000 white women. WHY don’t the women in our Native communities measure up in priority? I would think that the occurrence of violence against this many Native women would have every single feminist group up in arms and refusing to shut up until something is done about it – I certainly see that kind of coverage when abortion rights are threatened. WHAT are YOU going to do with this information now that you know about it?

Now some of the mainstream media have been paying attention – a little – albeit in a very sensationalist and sucker-punching way. Yet I’ve been reflecting a lot on why it is that violence against Aboriginal women is all of a sudden receiving more mainstream media attention. Ask anybody from an Indigenous community or nation and you will hear that this has been going on for 500+ years. I certainly don’t feel like the violence is subsiding or going away, but I’m acutely aware of how long it’s been going on for and how deeply entrenched it is in many of our communities, to the point of lateral and internalized violence and oppression.

Or, you know, do what I have been telling people to do for years and read Andrea Smith's Conquest. Here on Google's Books is the preview.

Dr. Debbie Reese who teaches in UIUC's American Indian Studies program has a wonderful blog called American Indians in Children's Literature. I have been following it for a while, it's damn good.

She discuss things like Elizabeth Bird's survey of Top 100 Children's Novels. She has conversations about covers and race. She talks about mainstream books, she talks about media, she talks about Twilight and Avatar!

This Sunday she was discussing a problematic quote of Neil Gaiman, this one:

"The great thing about having an English cemetery is I could go back a very, very, very long way. And in America, you go back 250 years (in a cemetery), and then suddenly you’ve got a few dead Indians, and then you don’t have anybody at all, unless you decide to set it up in Maine or somewhere and sneak in some Vikings.”

She dissected very nicely what was wrong with it. Kynn also talked about it in her journal and called it for what it was: neil gaiman's racist fail.

Then Neil Gaiman heared about it. This was his response:

I was replying to a specific question about European-style graveyards in the US and who you'd find in them and why I didn't set THE GRAVEYARD BOOK in America, which was that they didn't go back far enough, and they didn't give me the dead people I wanted for the story to work. Obviously (or obviously to me) I wasn't saying or implying that the country was uninhabited prior to the arrival of Europeans, or trying to somehow render invisible hundreds of millions of people who had inhabited this content for tens of thousands of years -- especially after having very specifically written about them, and about that timespan in American Gods.

(And, of course, European Graveyards in the US go back much further than 250 years.)

A more sensible answer to why I didn't set The Graveyard Book in America was that I didn't want to, but I had a microphone stuck in front of my face by the Hornbook in front of a crowd of people at Book Expo or ALA, and I babbled.

Also apologies to any Icelandic or Norwegian readers who are offended by my imprecision. Obviously none of the Newfoundland settlers were Vikings.

It wasn't that bad until the last part. He apologized to Icelandic and Norwegian readers! The thing about Native American dead people was Debbie not knowing his "context."

Then he twitted about it. Kynn was a twit and people were just looking for racism and you know how the ballad goes.

Then his fans arrived at Debbie's blog.

And this is the point of my post.

Race as an issue was totally erased. Debbie was being over emotional. A white guy told her to "calm down," some people were saying she was looking for "fame," some people who were "part Indian" (uhm) told her she was just seeing things and they were part Indian so they were right and she was wrong. She was looking for things to be offended. Again, race wasn't an issue unless someone called POC racist names.

So white people were doing what white people do best when they are being called on their racist attitudes: erasing systemic racism and trying to put POC who talk about it in their places. Everything else was an issue; but not race, never race. There should be no repercussions for white people's actions against POC. In this era, in which "Racism" is being looked down, the worst offense for a white person is to be called "racist," worse than being racist. You cannot call someone on their privilege. It's really the worst, worse than anything, worse than genocide. And then you know who dominates our spaces.

The funny thing is that race was always an issue and I'm going to show you the latest comments to that entry to illustrate my point:

NewOZlibrarian said:

In context, I'm rather certain that there wouldn't have been terribly many Indians buried in European style graveyards before European settlement...so "a few" is probably an accurate representation of the number of Indians in European-style graveyards over 250 years ago. Not having a particularly thorough understanding of American history (since I come from a country with its own systematically institutionalised genocide to concern itself with) I could be wrong.

But whatevs, it's the internet. Everyone's wrong some time...just that on the internet there's more people with nothing better to do than call you out on it.

And when it comes to representing american-indians...the whole quote boils down to the fact that he set his book in an entirely different country, thus avoiding representing them at all (a fiendish plot, no doubt, to rob them of just representation!). I suppose sometimes you just have to cope with the fact that you're not relevant to the plot.

Or perhaps he should have gone out of his way to represent the original inhabitants of his adopted country for no other reason than to avoid an inflammatory blog post several years after publication...since he'd be safe, as you'd never have read the book anyway.

See, this person says they can make their ignorant remarks on Native American's genocide without any guilt because they have their own country's genocide to concern themselves with! So no one can blame them if they are wrong about Native American genocide! What is white privilege... ah. Being insensitive about POC genocide without being blamed, that is white privilege. (And, "I suppose sometimes you just have to cope with the fact that you're not relevant to the plot." Really, do I need to respond to this.)

And what is more important? Not attacking Neil Gaiman is more important. So this person can talk about genocide without really knowing, but Debbie is inflammatory because she talked about Gaiman's ignorance. Her entry was "inflammatory." Neil Gaiman had no responsibility in badly representing Native Americans; his only concern should be white peoples representation, who are the most represented racial group in western media. Edit: I noticed this person doesn't specify their gender anywhere, and I just assumed they were male.

Liz Pennies says:

Debbie, I think you have good intentions, but fear all this kind of nitpicking does is teach others to put up fences and cause a continuation of name calling between races.

Point in case?
"Evidence of my point about American/English ignorance." Dissected, as you did Neil's sentence, shows how you have seemed to classify the whole of the American/English peoples as nothing but ignorant.

If you try hard enough one can take any conversation and find SOMETHING racist within in SOME way. Neil's was such a small comment. Was it worded poorly? Perhaps. As was yours.

I won't defend whether or not Neil has prejudices. I do not personally know the man. But in addressing his ONE sentence, I do believe he was simply trying to illustrate that cemeteries in America do not have the same feel as ones in Europe. Personally I would agree. I've visited both styles of grave sites, and anyone that has, understands the difference as well as the context in which he was making this statement. U.S. graveyards simply do not have the same atmosphere as the ones in Europe.

Ah. Do I need to say something? Gaiman's intend is more important than the constant erasure and misrepresentation of Native American genocide. And white people know best. Always know best. His comment was "small", by whose standard? White woman's standard. Not going to say more.

Then there is someone called Sarah H. who is trying to make Debbie read all of Gaiman's other books to show her what a great heart he has. I pass that one.

Then. The most interesting one that shows how white dominance works in today's world:

Alma Alexander said...

I was born in old Europe. I know all about church graveyards where there are gravestones so old that the information that used to be carved on them is worn down to nubs and it's impossible to read or decipher any more - and you will never know again who lies in that grave. Such graves tend to RATHER OLDER than any in the "New World", by definition, because European-style burials which the white folks brought over the water with them are by definition MUCH younger than the graves left behind in Europe. And before that, in the country that would become America, for all the PHSYCICAL markers that were left behind (in the sensibilities of the colonist folk and in their knowledge and understanding) those colonists would have no idea, unless directly involved in a massacre themselves, just how many Indians there were or had been before they got there and how and where their dead were disposed of. When Gaiman said "before that there was nobody at all" he meant that there were few bodies buried in "proper" graves with "proper" memorials and gravestones, before the white settlers arrived and brought that idea with them. In such graves, three or four hundred years ago in America, Gaiman was right - there was pretty much "nobody at all".

There are far too many reasons out there to take offence at idiots who really have an agenda to push. Please, please, let's stop trying to scratch out something offensive at EVERYTHING anybody utters, even when there was no real reason for it at all once you unpack a remark or put it into its context...

Again. Race erasure at the end. But do you see what I'm seeing? I was born in "Old Europe" thus I know better than you, Nambe Pueblo's Dr Debbie Reese, about Native American genocide and burials. So does Neil Gaiman. The white man. He was right, I'm right because I was born in Europe. You don't know about your people as I do.

And you know what, white people? I'm tired of you. Of all of you. I may be over emotional, I may be "looking for racism in everywhere." Yeah, I'm the POC who just want to have a feast on your white innocent asses while seeing you spill holy white tears. Whatever you want. But I will be damned if I'm going to let myself be silenced because you don't like hearing about the shit you do. Yeah, what I say about your fucking white idols erasing genocide and its victims all over again.

We are over emotional, angry, uppity if we talk. You are just people going on their lives without nothing to be blamed. This is why I'm tired of privileged "white allies" and the shit they put when they see someone they like being called on. Kynn had a lot more to lose than you, cis white allies. Debbie has a lot more to lose than you.

So if you don't want to read this. Please, get away from me, it's likely I don't want to talk to you. (Yeah, there were white people in that entry being "allies" to Debbie while telling her what she should have written instead of talking about that "insignificant" remark, seriously, didn't you learn anything? You don't decide what is important and what isn't.)

And trolls. I don't care about you, nor about your intentions. Your intentions are worth shit to the racism every POC experiences. As I said, I'm the "mean POC." Come here, and you will be ridiculed. Yeah, you are ignorant! Guess what, you aren't born knowing everything. So; you can be quiet and listen, or you can show your privileged ass.

---

Here is a good post: yeloson's Words, Context, Power.

Via delux at deadbrowalking.

What the fuck is this shit. Seriously. Those comments...

Oh, and Neil Gaiman? His wife's husband.

I just want to hear more fans of him sounding all butthurt because people dare to say "mean tings" about their idol! Come here, little ones, I know how to use banset. (Translation: I really don't care about hearing you.)

And lolol at the one going "with all the real racism going on there, you just focus on...!" It sounds so familiar.

Snarp just talked about this shit here, so I was about to let it go, but then just it popped out again on google when I was looking for "anime news" (yeah, I was looking about Reborn, shut up).

So the fuck, have a piece of privielged white Japanese American man saying that race doesn't matter because who cares if racism exists in the West, and POC are under and badly represented! And you know Japan SO makes manga for white people to appropriate have someone who looks like them.

ETA: First I linked to the wrong article because I can't find it on google anymore. I swear I just read the same shit on other place just now. Or it may be my lack of sleep. Whatever, have to go now.

Amazing sparkymonster makes the post that will saves us a lot of trouble from stupid people:

A lesson in good vs. bad irony thanks to Amanda Palmer. (Very triggering about racist violence and pictures of bodies.)

Not that big fan of Gaga here, but seriously, Palmer. You, white lady, don't know what you are saying. (And the same goes to the rest of white ladies and gentlemen who, undoubtedly, will come out saying things like "it's not that offensive, you are not reading her right!")

hotcoffeems sums it up on this comment:

Here is the only thing I personally can conclude about why she thinks this is on ANY level O.K.: the KKK and the endemic and brutal evil that it is symptomatic of really means nothing to her except as an abstract. To her, it means little more than another possible tool in the box to use to promote herself as an "artist." There is NO WAY anyone could say such a thing, especially on the heels of that steaming Evelyn Evelyn mess, then follow it up with the "teehee, for those upset about the Klan reference..." Twitter and actually and genuinely comprehend that what the KKK is and represents is a profound evil in the world.

I'm so pissed that I'm reacting pretty badly to other and non-related online arguments I'm having right now. Yeah, avoid me.

And it starts with the upcoming liveaction movie of Bleach by WB. (See link for comments of white people saying they don't care about Asian actors because Bleach is not that Japanese anyway.)

Seriously, white people. Seriously. The day you understand that race relations aren't something relative... it will be... for fucks sake, it will never come.

ETA: Okay, I will word it better. White people? Go fuck yourself. Hard. This show doesn't need Asian actors? What. Nothing distinctive? I mean, what about the fact that IT'S A JAPANESE SHOW AND WHITE PEOPLE HAVE BEEN APPROPRIATING EVERYTHING NOT WHITE SINCE THEY STARTED COLONIZING COUNTRIES CENTURIES AGO, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES.

Daughter of ETA 1: Also, notice how white westerns are there to define what is or isn't Japanese/Asian/POC. Most of them who only have been exposed to those cultures by media. Ah, white privilege.

That's all. I'm also working for the winner of my help_chile's bid. So will be kinda busy.

Spoilers for Reborn 283:

( Ranting, as always and coloring )

Racebending Facebook Group Taken Down

The group “People Against Racebending: Protest of the Cast of The Last Airbender Movie” has been removed because it violated our Terms of Use. Among other things, groups that are hateful, threatening, or obscene are not allowed. We also take down groups that attack an individual or group, or advertise a product or service. Continued misuse of Facebook’s features could result in your account being disabled.

... uhm. How's that. Apparently racial equality in fiction is a very insulting idea for some people.

But I have awesome links. So don't need to concern yourself about this post's subject.

bcbgrl33 writes: Lessons on Black Women in Sci-fi: Nyota Uhura and the Disappointment of Martha Jones

Thus fandom became infatuated with this pairing, bashing anyone who was not for Ten/Rose. With the intrusion of this Black woman- who was just as capable and intelligent, if not more so, than Rose- fandom went nuts. No one could replace their Rose; thus, Martha was made by fandom to feel unwelcomed and unworthy of any of her accomplishments in the season, especially in comparison to Rose, the epitome of femininity and pureness.

What really ticked off a lot of Martha fans was that her very real feelings toward the Doctor (bolstered by the Chemistry between David Tennant and Freema Agyeman) were downplayed or seen as intrusive towards the poor Doctor, who was 'clearly' just trying to get over Rose, his true love. Her feelings towards the Doctor were seen as petty, annoying, and uncalled for by fans. He was supposed to be with Rose and their was no 'evidence' to support Ten/Martha ship. The writers helped fuel this idiotic thinking by writing her as worthy of only “One Trip”, so as not to seemingly replace Rose.

[...] With that being said, I love love love Uhura as well because she helped save the world with her inteligence, was assertive and clever, and on top of being incredibly skilled at what she did, she gets the guy. What's more to love? But inspite of her positive attributes, all of these are downplayed by fandom in both communities. It just seems that whenever their is a strongly written Black female character and a hint that they are sexual or romantic towards the Lead, there is a loud, vocal protest from fandom (as you can see with the backlash between Uhura and Martha). It is the same stuff different year.

Black women aren't regarded as white women. Don't try to argue this with me. I mean it. And boy if they aren't regarded as white men if you know what I mean. *look at slashers*

inkstone has a very interesting post with two videos that look at Shonen Jump's Big 3 through time, from 1968 to 2007. Thoughts on a Saturday Afternoon.

I do think, however, that these videos are a good illustration of how the criticism of WSJ's editorial is justified at times. Because, to be honest, there's a part of me that says the Big 3 remaining so static -- I mean, the order shuffles occasionally but it's always One Piece, Naruto & Bleach -- can't be healthy in terms of artistic creation and story innovation. And I say that as someone who just got into One Piece and totally understands now why it's so popular in Japan and really admires the structure & execution of the plot. That can't be good for the manga industry, you know? Since I'm fairly sure part of the reason the current Big 3 are the current Big 3 is very strongly tied to multimedia franchises and marketing. In other words, if there's not a strong component for multimedia opportunity, it's not going to take off.

And from a creator standpoint, that... is really problematic.

And I don't have such a good relationship with OP (yeah, some day I had to come out and say it). So you may want to stick with inkstone's view.