it's me and you rosie cracklin' like crossed wires
2. i judge all shows by h:lots standards
2a. 'homicide: life on the street' is a 1990s cop show. why haven't you seen it yet?
2b. HLOTS BUNNIES
3. hisako ichiki is my favourite
4. sandra oh for jessica jones
5. joan watson is greater than all your other watsons combined
6. idris elba for all your favourite sacred white characters
7. lea salonga should record a les mis album by herself. i would buy it.
8. olivia pope deserves better than fitz
9. there will be irregular picspams of shows i like
10. if none of that has scared you off, i am an asian canadian woman who likes looking at media critically. white dudes are generally my least favourite character type. i mean, they have to be twice as good as everyone else to be considered half as worthwhile. (except scott summers. and if that doesn't get me unfollowed, i don't know what will.)
10a. i like elementary, but i don't think it's all that progressive. better than other shows? sure, but still too white gazey. i think this means other shows should do better, not that elementary should get tonnes of praise for...treating joan like a human being. joan, for me, is micro-resistance. elementary could still do better.
11. john cho \o/
Tyler Posey in White Frog
(via indevan)
@godfreygao Care for some tea? 下午茶嗎？
(via jhenne-bean)
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, TedxEuston (x)
Amen
I always say this.
(via hazeleyed1)
(via accessoriesinthecity)
The very basis of Bono’s engagement of selected African development issues and the elites he engages is racist. His formulation advances the white (wo)man as savior and Africans as the goods than must be packaged and arranged without contaminating the structural and ideological hierarchy of whiteness.
Bono is the post-colonial iteration of Kipling’s white man’s burden’ and his presence in African affairs is racist.
I have been saying this for years and for years folks who are fans of his music and media personality have been reacting negatively in my admittedly small circle of interaction.
I remember a student once confronting me about my views on Bono after a spirited conversation in class.
She told me that one of her most memorable moments was meeting Bono. “He is such a good soul and it is hard to believe he would be tricking Africans since he has nothing to gain from doing that,” she said staring at me in a mix of bewilderment and anger.
Bono has manufactured his presence in African affairs. It was an easy entry for a man who hardly threatens the structural conditions and history that makes him relevant to the elites he engages in the West and on the continent.
He is like a circus of privilege. He picks and chooses battles and offers nothing more than the illusion that he can deliver change and a new engagement. And as he does this he removes the voice and agency of the downtrodden and Monbiot argues.
It is an old story couched primarily in a racist imagination that cannot break the stranglehold of lopsided capitalist values that created a world where an uninformed clown like Bono thinks he is an agent for change.
[…]
Bono is the mainstream. A superficial caricature at best who has enough access to imperial clout to make himself appear as he does in the picture above.
Bono’s gaze is that of a colonial creation. He is the post-colonial oppressor and no friend to oppressed people in Africa or anywhere else.
zuky:
Great art and artists are not reliant on tools to create astounding masterpieces. The end product is a result of ability, discipline and vision.
-VShe’s using a broom but the technique is the same as traditional Japanese or Chinese brushwork. And when it comes to traditional brushwork, one word: practice. It’s a beautiful piece. I bet she can do a half-dozen of those in a day.
History textbooks should all be titled “White Fanfiction.”
White Male Fanfiction.*
No, I said White Fanfiction and that’s what I meant, or did you forget how you learned in school that Susan B. Nigger Hating Anthony is an American hero? My status as a black man does not erase my male privilege, and white feminists love to point that out every five seconds, so I think it’s about time y’all started to accept that your status as women does not erase your white privilege. Do we need a history lesson about how many lynchings took place on the basis of a black dude looking at a white woman, or how the race riots on the beaches in Australia against middle eastern men was because one of them whistled at a white woman?
(via aragingquiet)
i am publishing this largely because i don’t think this is a conversation that should happen just between white people, and because i want other people to be able to respond should they feel so inclined! i appreciate author engagement with fannish critical discourse, but I also know that it can easily go badly and be stifling or silencing, so if anyone feels uncomfortable with this, please let me know.
i think the main thrust of the criticism was not that white straight authors are discussing or attempting to amplify diversity, but that theirs is usually the sole amplified voice in the discussion, which also more often than not focuses on their own works’ achievements and on their own struggles, triumphs, and perspectives. i think there is a lot of congratulating white straight authors for writing any kind of diversity and i do not think anyone wants an environment in which there is more focus on an ally’s bravery or goodness than on the experiences or perspective of marginalized people whom the allies are ostensibly supporting. all of this has a really harmful—and structurally reinforced!—effect of drawing attention away from the marginalized characters, readers, or author voices and towards the white straight champions of diversity. diverse characters and narratives should be the status quo, but i don’t think white straight authors should be praised as extensively as they are for doing the right thing. and even if you don’t contribute intentionally to that environment, you do benefit a lot from it, as you said.
i also think that white straight authors’ focus on the ways in which they are writing marginalized characters also often circumvents discussion of the ways in which they could be doing more, or better. i have been trying to speak in general terms because i am not very familiar with your participation in this discourse, but here is a somewhat related story: a couple of years ago i remember you referring to unspoken as your “lesbian romance,” and as more details leaked, i got unbelievably excited for a telepathic queer woc romance from one of my favorite authors— only to discover that the lesbians were secondary characters. and i did still love the book, and the woc protagonist, and her heterosexual romance. but i had thought she might be a lesbian, and then i felt foolish for having ever thought that, which sucked in general. there’s an environment suggesting that marginalized readers be grateful for what we get because it’s so hard for white straight authors to publish characters like us, and that’s hurtful.
re: the public discussion and interviews, i think it’s tricky because you do, as a published author writing diverse characters, have insight into the silencing and othering process of publishing—and i think it’s very important for you discuss and expose the way that young adult literature is treated and conceived of in the industry. but when that particular experience becomes—as it is becoming—the sole narrative through which we are able to discuss or understand textual “diversity,” and when the experiences of actual “diverse” people are left by the wayside, as they are, then i think the discourse becomes both exclusive and distracted.
so like, when i look at the “young adult” tag on racebending, the interviewed authors are literally just you, holly black, cassandra clare, and justine larbaleister. and i think that’s hugely indicative of a larger problem of focusing on certain already dominant perspectives. so yes! please keep talking about it. it is absolutely part of one’s work as an ally to amplify and open discourse in which one is privileged. but please try to talk about it in such a way that focuses more on highlighting already marginalized voices and experiences, and that encourages and includes genuine social as well as textual diversity. and that continues to be critical of your own work, and to invite criticism so that you can, as you said, do better! i think—i hope—there are ways to discuss literature (even one’s own) within the context of an oppressive society that do not continue to value the ally above the marginalized.
people, please feel free to respond, correct, or add onto this post as you see fit.
as a PoC published author in kidlit, i actually find the response to sarah rees brennan alarming. having been talking about and fighting for diversity and representation in books for so long, you learn that allies are few and far between. and sarah is most certainly one of those allies. i don’t think we should silence anyone when it comes to talking about representation and encouraging discussion. it only creates guilt and fear and takes away from actual discourse. also, racebending features and most certainly interviews a diverse set of people. to suggest that they should never interview an ally who happens to be white and/or straight, to me, is ludicrous. this sort of mindset only fractures. it does not unify.
i think the problem wrt to racebending interviews is that, as the OP states, they have only interviewed YA authors who are white & straight(?). It’s not so much that ‘allies’ should NEVER be interviewed or talk about this stuff. It’s questioning why their voices are given precedence over authors who are POC and/or queer. I mean, SRB is hardly ‘being silenced’. She’s the one who got interviewed! That interview still exists! She can give all the interviews she wants! or make tumblr posts/replies or whatever. It’s just…where’s the acknowledgement that as a white person, she’s more likely to be heard (not silenced) and taken seriously about race than a POC.
zuky:
“Our eating and drinking issue that takes alcohol and caloric-induced mayhem to a new level”
