lunar new year is our biggest celebration & is supposed to be a time of joy and family, but due to white supremacy & xenophobia, our communities are hurting. it is incredibly painful to see our elders – who our cultures place a huge amount of respect and reverence on, and who often don’t even tell their families about these hate incidents because they don’t want them to worry – being targeted in this way. please donate if you can & spread whatever resources you come across. i will update this post with more links as i find them.
We need to dismantle the systems in place that allow white people to get away with offering black people sub-par services based on the excuse that our bodies are more difficult to work with. Black hair is not more difficult than white hair, it simply requires a different skill set. Tattooing vibrant tattoos on black skin isn’t more difficult than tattooing white skin, it simply requires a different skill set. Photographing black people isn’t more difficult than photographing white people, it simply requires an understanding of photography. Doing makeup on black skin isn’t more difficult than doing makeup on white skin, it simply requires different products. Working with black people is not more difficult than working with white people you’ve all just been taught that it’s not valuable and therefore not worth learning how.
This is extremely similar to the dilemma faced by disabled people. It is no more expensive to design a building with ramps instead of stairs, it’s only when you create the building first and have to tear down the stairs and replace them that you incur costs. If we teach the skills of inclusion from the beginning, there should be no additional costs for services and accessiblity for anybody.
Initially I wasn’t sure I wanted to diverge from the axis of race over to disability, but I actually think that the analogy of that building and how it’s only after we’ve institutionalized inequality that costs are incurred trying to fix it, is a valuable one so thanks for the contribution.
i hate it when men make fun of women for being vain. like you’ve structured society in such a way that we spend our entire lives chasing after the fleeting moments where we really and truly feel good about our appearances and then have the audacity to mock us for trying to “look pretty” like you’re constantly telling us to? shut the fuck up.
“You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting “Vanity,” thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for you own pleasure.” ― John Berger, Ways of Seeing
american leftists seem extremely focused on anti imperialism (good) but rarely- if at all- discuss decolonization in their own fucking country, despite acknowledging that it is a settler colonial state.
im serious about this though. as an urban indian, i definitely cant speak on this as much as a rez indian could. but i know from talking to rez friends i have and from what the american indian movement has screamed for over the years that we need land we can grow on, we need clean water, we need to allow the wildlife that once lived in this land to live here again (meaning you need to listen to us before building those high speed rails you all get so hard over).
you cant drool over the zapatistas while ignoring people in your own country who have a similar goal
silly me I never provided things to read on the topic of decolonization! I’d personally suggest the following as “beginner level” essential reading to understand decolonization:
Discourse on Colonialism (Aimé Césaire) - this is more a focus on colonization, but I feel it’s a necessary read in my opinion as in order to understand decolonization I believe it’s important to first understand colonization.
Wretched of the Earth (Franz Fanon)
Decolonization is Not a Metaphor (Tuck, Yang)
also an “easy to process” read, to understand landback specifically here in Turtle Island, I’d suggest reading The Red Deal (there is a pdf, I don’t mean the article with the same title)
Anonymous asked: just outta curiosity, why do you sort your quotes by where they come from? albanian lit, mexican lit, etc. is it just to be able to find stuff easier? bc your compilation posts like show that Everyone Can Think The Same No Matter Where or When They Are From, yeah? so it seems idk contradictory to organize via country origin I guess. i dont know. just an observation, no ill will !
It definitely does help to find them more easily but for me it’s also important to highlight literature from different countries. I completely agree with you, everyone does think the same, and to me it emphasizes that very point–but there’s also the fact that, in reality, the worldview of a western or an anglophone and non-anglophone writer are absolutely not given the same weight. One of them can write about anything and it’s a commentary on the human condition on behalf of Everyone–whereas the other, one way or another, ends up becoming a spokesperson for their particular culture and our own view of that particular culture and we embrace or reject it based on how accurately it feeds into what we think we already know. Two teenagers in the trenches in 1918 and two teenagers in Baghdad in 2008 will have faced the same unthinkable horrors, even if in vastly different ways. But only one of these will be told again and again as a story about all of us, no matter when or where it happened; the other will always be a story about them, as though horror is not horror the world over, as if grief is not grief the world over. Two teenagers in Baghdad will always be two teenagers in Baghdad before ever being allowed to be two teenagers who could just as easily have been you or me, regardless of where their story happens.
That mindset, whether we know it or not, repeats itself over and over. We make assumptions about a place or culture and then assume that those assumptions make up the single story that defines that place or culture, and those definitions end up being partly based on thinking that the things that happen there are nothing like what happens here, even in the most trivial things, when it is absolutely not true. My reading was always very spotty and haphazard when I was younger but when I look back now I see that of the little I did read then, most was in translation or set in countries I knew next to nothing about. I wasn’t really making a conscious effort to seek out these books; they just caught my eye and interests at the time, but it’s carried on even into this blog and the kind of stories I value which are stories that link us together by moving through as many places as possible. My reading habits now are more conscious of this, because it’s so important; it’s reading diversely that shows you that everyone does share similar values and hopes and desires and that they are also so much more than a single story; but our similarities are also, crucially, tinged by differences in culture and mindset and history that enrich them and make our understanding, no matter how limited it will always be, a lot more nuanced and whole.
This became a bit longer than I expected so I apologise for the ramble, and there are other more complex things that come into play, of course, but I think to me, collapsing differences in order to show a shared humanity is completely counter-intuitive. We’re the same with our differences, not in spite of them. Even when you and I may be nothing alike, our differences are an essential part of the whole, and if we assume that we must ignore them or gloss past it to see each other as equals, then we are not actually seeing each other as equals, if that makes sense. You are not more human to me because I ignore your race or your religion or where you come from. You are human to me, because you are human. It should not–cannot–be dependent on how alike you are to me. Looking past these things–as in, actively making a point of ignoring them–is the same as rejecting them, and that, to me, is a very, very slippery slope.
ur asking for a lot bc that show is a complete and utter mess. first my tibetan ass wants u to think about the fact that its a show using asian/indigenous ppl and their devastating histories made by ignorant weeaboo white men. I wanted to write about it in detail bc i’ve always wanted to say something about this but never rly got around to doing it. avatar was a big part of my childhood (that did make my father uncomfortable) so I’m speaking from a place not entirely out of hatred or spite. maybe ill send this in letter format to the writers lol. anyways im going to split this up into parts. I’ll put a readmore bc its kinda long
1. Unexplained, Stereotyped, and Insensitive/Uneducated Political Parallels
avatar uses cultural and religious elements of different asian/indigenous cultures and sorta smashes it all together to create a very superficial fantasy world. The first thing you need to know is that the air nation is an obvious but flawed representation of my home country, Tibet. Air nomads are devout pacifist monks/nuns who live in the high mountains, an extremely common and one-dimensional racial stereotype of tibetans and the religion of tibetan buddhism by westerners and western media.
The complete genocide of the peaceful air nation by the technologically advanced fire nation directly represents the invasion and occupation of tibet by the peoples republic of china (PRC) in 1959. the PRC directly caused the deaths of millions of Tibetans through murder, warfare, pillaging etc. Tibet is now one of the most oppressed countries in the world (https://www.freetibet.org/about/human-rights), with no freedom of speech/religion, mass internet and media censorship, prison torture, forced assimilation into han society, police brutality, and cultural destruction and erasure by the chinese government. (Its so bad that hundreds of Tibetans are committing mass suicide through self-immolation https://savetibet.org/tibetan-self-immolations/) while geographically avatar’s fire nation might resemble japan, while earth nation seems more similar to China, the fire nation government and mission to conquer and colonize are in direct accordance to the approach of both imperialist Japan and the PRC. The Tibetan population numbers have been severely reduced bc of chinese occupation, with the threat of cultural extinction through murder and assimilation being a big concern in the community. With Tibetans having a very sensitive history of oppression, genocide, and constant brutal suffering, having media content for children about tibetan-like people being completely massacred to extinction bc they’re too peaceful isn’t exactly tasteful.
One of the main faults of the show I cannot forgive is the use of “cool flashy asian” words/names used in the show that in reality have tragic political context, like lake laogai: Laogai 勞改 (https://laogairesearch.org/laogai-system/) are real Chinese prison camps that hold hundreds of thousands of tibetan (and chinese, and other minority groups of china) political prisoners (normally activists who protest for justice and freedom). they “reform” people through unethical slave labor, and many prisoners have painfully starved to death. Thousands of real people (including family members and friends of mine) suffered and died without right to fair trial and humane living conditions, and the treatment of human beings in the laogai is an extremely horrifying and obvious abuse of human rights.
I feel like a response to this might be “why are these representations offensive? you can make a show that addresses and promotes awareness of issues and its not offensive! its a good thing that helps!” but the problem with avatar is that the real world comparisons that the show makes are never actually explained or clarified to the viewers. with most of the target audience knowing absolutely nothing about tibet/asia and these real political issues, all of these references go right over their head. The average viewer will believe this show is using original ideas when its actually desensitizing a real and horrible history. Using politics that reference the real suffering and deaths of millions of people and not having the courtesy to properly acknowledge it isn’t funny or cute. And even worse, using stereotyped caricatures instead of a more accurate representation of the culture you’re “borrowing” from just makes your content outright disrespectful.
“I personally feel that when drawing from dark real world events/situations (especially if you are using the real term and are not substituting i.e. Air Nomads - Tibet vs. Lake Laogai), and if those events are not that well known to your audience, you are obligated to give context, be it in the form of interviews, the art book, on the website (there are loads of options). Why? Because it is disrespectful. Bad shit happened to real people, real people suffered in those camps and having fans off and online referring to said camps without knowing what they are saying is not cool.”
2. Promotion of Cultural Appropriation and Insensitivity
if you’re a poc who is very close to your culture, it will become pretty obvious to u that this show is written by white people. you can especially tell in episodes that address culture/religion and appropriation, bc they have absolutely no idea what they’re doing. one thing that stuck with me since I was a kid was that northern air temple episode. aang saw those earthbenders destroy and deface the air temple and got rightly upset, but it was treated as the wrong way of thinking. even when i was a dumb kid i never understood this. when i projected onto this character I did feel like aang (despite being a racial caricature) had every fucking right to be angry and hurt?? these temples are a part of his religion, his culture, his faith and his way of life? seeing the last remnants of your extinct people and culture being destroyed and defiled by sewage would obviously be offensive? but his feelings are disregarded bc that guy who’s making tech for the fire nation, the literal murderers of the entire air nation, is important too or whatever. instead of the message being “appreciate past cultures and their religious artifacts/temples and live alongside them respectfully”, it was “cultural preservation is stupid if it stands in the way of better technology” which feel like a very colonial way of looking at culture, esp by the PRC, bc of how communism considers religion to be a hindrance to revolution. also the fact that the prc destroyed thousands of holy tibetan monasteries for chinese shopping malls and parking lots.
Also in legend of korra the whole “neo non-airbender airbender” cult on that island parallel real western cults (white hippies with dreads) obsessed with living what they think is a “tibetan lifestyle”. they appropriate and fetishize tibetan religion and culture, to the extent of being condescending, racist, and disrespectful towards real tibetans and invading tibetan spaces (”it might be tibetan culture, but tibetans just dont get it like we do”). I remember my sister reading a comic where tenzin or someone was upset at these non-airbender’s blatant appropriation, but his feelings were shut down for the message “anyone can be a part of this culture bc tibetans airbenders r all dead lol!!1! we keep it alive!!” like, wow, Mike and Bryan, ik u think all tibetans are doomed for extinction but thanks for that.
3. Ignorant Fanbase
Last, about the fans. Because the show’s previously mentioned lack of educating/raising awareness towards what this show references, many fans tend to be very (sometimes unintentionally) racist and insensitive towards aspects of cutures/tradition that avatar borrowed from the real world (the most common I see is fans butchering pictures of his holiness the dalai lama, the most sacred religious figure for tibetans to make a shitty avatar joke. He’s the reincarnation of an enlightened being, even his photographs are supposed to b treated with RESPECT). Because of this, praising the show to high heaven bc of its racial “representation” when its actually racist caricature feels kind of shitty.
also this isnt necessarily “problematic” but the “are u named tenzin after the guy from avatar” line from nerds is literally SO ANNOYING and SO COMMON, especially when its the name of his holiness the Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso, both his auspicious first and last name were used in the show) and the most common tibetan name ever (We have a tradition of high lamas giving their names to our children as a blessing, which is why every other Tibetan you meet will be named Tenzin). so if you like avatar and you’ve never met a tibetan before, please dont ask weird shit like if their name is from avatar or if tibetans are like the funny blue arrow monks (i’ve gotten that one before) its fucking irritating.
Honestly, I normally don’t really have such a big problem with white ppl writing tibetan characters. Its all stereotypes and monks and ignorance, but im so desperate for representation i usually halfass accept it anyways. but i just couldn’t handle the way the writers of avatar are so obviously insensitive and idiotic while going out of their way to try and use “~huge political messages~” that they dont understand and dont want their fans to actually learn more about. If the writers did some actual research and made avatar respectful towards Tibetans and raise awareness about tibetan/PRC politics I would have definitely appreciated it. But they didn’t.
also the movie is just its own shitshow, but I hate how everyone thinks the cartoon is okay when it really isn’t.
this is getting attention again so i edited it a little with some links. its been like 4 years since i wrote this so i like to think my writing ability is better…but i dont want to completely rewrite out this whole thing again.
avatar the last airbender is just a product of a larger phenomenon. the fantastical depiction of tibet in western media is a solidified pillar in tibetan studies as a form of new age orientalism born due to a complex history of racial imbalance, cultural appropriation and deep misunderstanding.
Prisoners of Shangri-La by Donald S Lopez is an essential work in contemporary Tibetan Studies relating to how orientalism damages our political goals and autonomy:
After an extremely difficult year around the world, Honduras and other Central American countries have just been hit by Hurricane Eta, which has been hugely compared to the destructive Hurrincane Mitch that struck Honduras 22 years ago, leaving thousands of families without homes.
The vast majority of the Honduran population lives in extreme poverty. Thousands of families have completely lost their homes and are now displaced with nowhere to go. There are several organizations and companies doing what they can to help, offering places to stay, collecting clothing, mattresses, coverings, etc. for the people to stay away from the cold, and also personal protection gear, face masks, hand sanitizer etc. because we can’t forget about COVID in the midst of this dissaster.
The truth is Honduras doesn’t have the resources to help it’s people, we’re doing what we can with what we have but we need outside help! If you can please donate! anything helps, it doesn’t have to be much a dollar or a pound is enough to pay for a meal!! if you can’t donate please spread this around with your friends, family, on social media, etc.
On December 4th, 2020, Casey Christian Goodson Jr. (23 years old) was shot three times in the back and murdered by a Sheriff’s Deputy as he was entering his home in Columbus, Ohio. Goodson’s family stated that he was returning home from a dentist appointment, holding a Subway sandwich, his face mask, and his keys, when he was shot.
Two days later, the Columbus Police Department made a statement alleging that James Meade, the deputy responsible for Goodson’s death, saw a man believed to be Goodson with a gun while driving. Meade then approached Goodson after he exited his car and walked home, where he was shot.
Hours after the shooting, the US Marshal for the Southern District of Ohio, Peter Tobin, confirmed that Goodson was not the fugitive they were searching for. However, Tobin also added that he believed that the shooting was justified, claiming that Goodson was shot after he refused to drop his “weapon.”
Yet another Black man murdered by the police.
DEMAND JUSTICE.
art credit: @alex.albadree on instagram
graphics credit: @worldawarenessassociation on instagram
No. As an English major and a transgender person, no. We do not take this attitude.
Harry Potter is a culturally important work and JK Rowling wrote it.
So many culturally important works of literature were written by people with bad views by today’s and even their time’s standards. Shakespeare? Racist, sexist, islamophobic, xenophobic, anti-Semitic. But we don’t erase his name from those plays. Because if we try and claim that those plays were authorless it gives us an awfully convenient excuse to ignore all of the flaws within them and how we may or may not agree with those flaws on a subconscious level.
In the world of literary analysis these days the author is no longer dead. We don’t do that anymore. The author is a ghost hanging over your shoulder. You can interpret their work any way you want and they can have no say in it. But you as a reader must also acknowledge that their original intentions are there. Their personal history and the times they lived in are there.
JK Rowling wrote that series whether you like it or not. Whether that makes you comfortable or not. Harry Potter is one of the most culturally important book series of the last century and it was written by a transphobe. It was written by JK Rowling. Face up to it. Look it dead in the eye. Recognize its flaws and like it anyways if you still want to. But don’t. I repeat don’t. Do not claim that it is authorless. No work of literature is.
We’re holding JKR accountable like mature adults and embracing the reality though it hurts us to admit something we love was written by someone who continues to dig her grave but we must
if you’re going to listen to any celebrity right now, listen to john boyega. hes spoken out since the start, since way before this. hes had to deal with people telling him that him speaking out isnt right and ‘kids look up to him so less swearing’. he was breaking at the protests. and the fact his career could be ruined for speaking from his own experience and basic white celebs get praise for posting a picture isn’t right and if you need anything to make you realise that the treatment of black people is different from anyone else, this should be it.
You will misunderstand the economic history of white supremacy in America if you’re under the impression that convict labor (the “except as punishment for a crime” bit of the 13th Amendment) was how the plantation economy of the South continued after the official abolition of slavery. It mainly wasn’t. Convict labor was always only a relatively small sector of the Southern economy.
The vast majority of freed slaves became sharecroppers and tenant farmerson white-owned land. This was the real basis of the continuation of the slave-based Southern agrarian economy. And though many of the most egregious elements of slavery were now mostly gone (the whip, the overseers, the legal inability to leave), the basic slave-plantation economy was still intact as these black farm laborers now basically worked for the same “wages” as they had as slaves. Landowners would sell a few basic living essentials like food, clothing, and heating oil to the laborers on credit, and at harvest time, the sharecroppers’ or tenant farmers’ “earnings” from their crop would be used to pay off their debt to the landowner, usually leaving them at zero, or even still in the red, indebted to the landowner. From a financial standpoint, this was hardly any different than slaves working and receiving zero wages besides those same basic living essentials from the slave master.
Forced convict labor existed in all of this, and was used to keep many black people involved in more obvious slavery (complete with the chains, the overseers, and even the whip), but the convict-leasing system and the state-run plantations run by prison labor did not constitute the majority of the Southern economy, neither in terms of the percentage of the population involved nor in economic output.
To this day, prison labor in the US only constitutes a small fraction of the economy, and is not in any way profitable. The companies that use prison labor are able to profit because they don’t have to pay any of the living costs of the prisoners, nor the costs of incarcerating them, as the state pays for all that. The amount of money the state has to spend incarcerating people dwarfs the amount of revenue there is to be gained from exploiting prison labor. It is generally a net loss for the overall economy. Even in cases where the state saves money by using cheap prison labor to replace expensive free labor (like California’s firefighters), this is simply them attempting to recoup some of the cost they spend incarcerating those workers in the first place. Whether the state uses prisoners as firefighters or not, it costs them the same amount of money to lock those people up, it’s a sunk cost. So they figure they might as well try to save some money on their fire-fighting budget by employing prisoners at $2 an hour instead of free labor at $40/hr.
Prison labor cannot in any way be described as the basis of the US economy, and it cannot grow to become one either. It is unproductive. Incarceration loses more revenue than it generates. The prison-industrial complex is a parasitic tumor on the economy. It does not constitute the economic logic of white supremacy. The US carceral system needs to be understood as an apparatus of state terror, not of economic production. Its purpose is to discipline and intimidate, not to produce. Its purpose in the structure of white supremacy in America is not for the exploitation of black labor. If that were its purpose, it does so incredibly inefficiently, spending more money than it earns. Its purpose in the structure of white supremacy is for terrorizing and disciplining the black population, breaking urban black political power, and strengthening rural political representation.
