Seeking Avalon

Just Call Me Big 'Low

2008-07-26T13:31:00.003-04:00

http://heidischnakenberg.blogspot.com/ - That is Heidi Schnakenberg's blog is now readable by invitation only.

Wow don't I feel dangerous and threatening with my bad WoC Self.

Well Spoken Blacks - We're Gonna Get You!

Ami?

I guess we know now why a certain 'Becky' can't dare risk signing on with an actual email or a link to her blog. Well Spoken Asians might Get Her!

WWS - Now In New Ultra Conservative Fear Flavour!

I feel like I need a cane, or at least more muscles and a white suit like movieverse Kingpin.

But why can't I have this kind of influence on comics creato - oh, yeah, I'm not going anywhere near the filthpool boards they swim in; smells like old gym socks.

ETA: Apparently a scary well spoken black woman just can't win. Schnakenberg is back. No cane, no theme music, no high tech toaster for me. Damn it. I am so behind in my scary, black person creds.

Notes on Exhaustion

2008-07-25T09:52:00.002-04:00

When Wowio.Com comes back, I'm going to drown myself in good, easily accessible, makes me want a tablet pc comics. Because without Wowio giving me goodies on demand every day, I'm noticing too much bullshit and depressing stuff.

It's wearying.

I miss being able to enthuse. I miss Faces of Colour.

My Anger Is Valid, Your Running Away Isn't

2008-07-25T08:33:00.009-04:00

There's a woman whose first name is Heidi who wrote an article about Feminism that was full of shit, in my opinion. This entry is not about her. It is somewhat about me going to her blogsite today because I came across a link that claimed she'd tried to clarify what she'd meant in her original article. Clarification #2. But there was also a clarification #0. So that's three entries to clarify an editorial put up on a news site. But this post also isn't talking about that.

The Point:

There's a community on LJ called feminist. On said community a certain bittercat posted a one-liner concerning Ms Heidi Schnakenberg's article. Her one liner was: "I thought this was a very good article on race and feminism". That's all she said.

Given that said article ended up needing three separate posts (not on the original news site even) to clarify itself, one would think that bittercat would have more to say about the issues, especially when people commented asking her what she meant by that. And was she planning to elaborate or did she NOT see the racism and classicism and a whole bunch of other mess going on in the article.

Two pages of discussion and bittercat only posted three times. Once to say thank you to someone else who'd written a long nuanced comment about what they thought the original writer of the article might have been trying to say and what they got out of it. bittercat's second comment, was a response to someone asking why she hadn't written, tried to write/explain herself along the lines of the commenter she was thanking. In that comment she made the claim she was in a hurry and she's not eloquent or a college level scholar and that she didn't respond sooner because she doesn't like to contribute to nurturing hostility. So even though people were clamoring for her to explain herself, she viewed their anger and upset and confusion as hostility.

She told folks to 'have a good day' and she left the community.

Which leads us to today. And me going to read Clarification #3. And scrolling to find Clarification #2 and see if it's the entry that I'd read before. And I saw someone responding to Schnakenberg as if they were indeed bittercat and this is what they had to say:

It was a LOT of women, and I don't know if they were WOC or not. I just know they were very angry.

I ended up leaving that community over that. Not because I am a coward, but because I was overwhelmed by the sheer negativity that came out of my post. I am very sensitive and don't react well to such hatred. I also, like yourself, did not know about the particular events--which your friend so kindly posted about--that led up to the current divisiveness.(Have not had time to read those links, but I am going to.)

I just can't be a part of a "Feminist" community that is so...hostile. I can't stomach the idea that, because I am white, to some women, my oppression does not exist. For me, all women's oppression exists, so the divisions along race lines are just foreign to me. I was not raised that way, and I will not play into it now.

I have linked to your blog from mine, because no matter how much I read on the subject of interesectionality [sic]--what it has become--I STILL agree with you.

I am an I-Feminist and an Eco-Feminist. We tend to--on the one hand--see every individual woman's struggles as equally valid--and on the Eco side, we tend to see the big picture--the global implications of the oppression of women and girls. Those philosophies are just not amenable to nor compatible with this "new" intersectionality. In EcoFeminism, intersectionality (the traditional meaning) is a given.

Bless you.
~Cyber_Hippie

If Cyber Hippie is not bittercat and is someone else from another community who posted the article and received a huge outcry in return; Then I feel a bit better about the state of things on the internet that somewhere else there was a huge outcry.

But if Cyber Hippie is bittercat then I'm wondering if it's perfectly functional for her brain and sensibilities to write out her thoughts and beliefs if a) she finds herself in a position of agreement, or b) she knows the person reading and replying to her is not a Woman of Colour.

I won't link to Schnakenberg's response to that comment. It's easy enough to erase up until the .html and read the entry and all the comments. But I do find myself wanting to say this:

"Calling something divisiveness and hostility doesn't mean you're not claiming reverse discrimination. And it certainly isn't being inclusive of all women when there's mutual patting on the back and indulging in WWS.

All women are NOT delicate snowflakes who've never faced opposition of any other sort in their life and can have the privilege of not engaging because it would nurture hostility. And this 'divisiveness'? It's not recent. Even in #2 (entry 3) of her clarification Schnakenberg does not bring up the WoC First and Second Wave Feminists she left out of her original article.

More importantly, maybe most importantly. The discomfort of white women when faced with the reality of WoC dealing with multiple oppressions is not more important than those oppressions. The fear of white women is ALSO NOT more important than those oppressions. Because what else could be it but fear to feel the need to pop up and declaim every ten seconds "But White Women Are Oppressed Too!" as if WoC will somehow leave White Women standing on the corner as they move forward to tackle said oppressions. We are the ones who got left by the wayside in all the beginnings. We aren't the ones who throw a problem overboard in order to get just what we want. We aren't you."

========
Steel Magnolia Note: Karen Healey's Post on the lack of WoC/CoC in Buffyverse? The ass showing in her forums was truly reprehensible. Karen and Betty might have missed some things but they fully recognized excuses, racist tropes and lack of critical thinking when they saw it.

Privilege and Passive Racism In My Comics

2008-07-23T13:29:00.010-04:00

Remember this jackass? I mentioned him back in March; Tom Brazleton of Theater Hopper. Apparently he's since pulled that page down on his lj feed. He's the one that didn't see what the big deal was about black face in current movies.

Well it seems like he has a web comic twin or possibly a fan in racist stupidity; Chris Daily of Striptease.

I was enjoying Questionable Content as I ate and tried to feel better (a/c apparently tricks your brain into thinking you don't need water. But oh you so do otherwise you end up feeling like crap). Questionable Content had a guest artist today.

So apparently the iPhone's best possible anthropomorphization, the best personality in a comic strip for this phone is as a - what was that? Was that a rich black thug? Or a rich black thug, rapper/musician?

"Call me 3G" + lack of conjugation of the verb 'to be' + misogyny.

WHAT THE FUCK?!

WHAT THE FUCK, Chris Daily??? It's not enough that when checking the cast of your comic, we find the hypersexualized Asian female and the magical sexualized gay negro (who opened some white chick's eyes to 'possibilities') - Jezebel much? And the lone black male - one Tommy - holy shit did you even think about that name? Though I'm calling Tommy black based on his goatee and baldness. He might be meant to be white. There aren't any other real signifiers on the cast page.

It's not enough, Chris Daily, that you have stereotypes and token minorities in your strip. You have to go contaminate Questionable Content? You have an otherwise bright spot in my day be one more instance of OTHERING?

~*~
I actually like Questionable Content and its regular writer/artist. Yes it's basically like F.R.I.E.N.D.S only more interesting, with music instead of coffee and the city has actual people of colour. Granted the PoC's seem to be mostly East Indian or of East Indian Descent; a drummer, a forensic doctor. But they just are. There's no big deal made about them. They don't get very special strips.

And the women in the comic kick ass. As well as the handling of several major traumatic/psychological issues. It treats sex well. It treats relationships between women well - it so passes the Bendel test and then some.
~*~

But unholy living shit this guest comic is just so full of racist failure. It's not funny. It's not cutting edge. It's not savvy. And it sure as hell isn't satire - unless 3G, a product made by Apple, which is owned by rich white men is the technological slave for said white men - oh wait. That wouldn't really be satire would it.

And then there's Windslow, in a tie, getting to look down at the hip, new, uncouth bit of technology.

DIF, Chris Daily. Just die in fire already.

ETA: And damn you, Jeph Jacques for thinking it was actually funny and letting it get posted.

__

eta: Amir the drummer might be of ME Decent.

Ami's Rant

2008-07-22T07:37:00.003-04:00

The link's been changed in Dear Feminisphere, PUT ON SOME DAMN PANTS . But here too is a link to Ami's Rant On: My sexuality, gender identity and ethnicity are NOT accessories that come with the Ami doll! >:|

Or as Ami and I have said in comments here on Seeking Avalon, non white peoples, non cisgendered peoples, non abled bodied, non heterosexual peoples DO NOT WANT to be white, able bodied, hetero and cisgendered deep down inside.

We are not Mr. & Mrs Potato Head Figures, with our ethnicity, sexuality, gender and functionality clipped and pasted on, ala plastic lips and hair.

Announcement / Thoughts

2008-07-21T12:05:00.005-04:00

Ami of Ami's Rants of Doom, which was linked in my post Re: The Femiblosphere Better Put On Some Damn Pants - is going to post her rant in her public blog. I'll link it here and mention when she does and change the link on the post itself.

2nd Announcement.

Bellatrys' - The Intersectionality of Hate: Name Magic in the 21st Century. It's a long essay. It's a really long essay. And it's taken me a day to work up to reading it.

Bellatrys often has interesting things to say. But she doesn't blog; she doesn't write conversationally. She writes thesis papers. There's always a little of classical greek philosophy in her essays and more than a touch of history. There are essays to make you think about the world and the places in it where everyone stands and how we got to those places and who put us in those places. This last essay especially does so.

It's spawned a bit by Helix and William Sanders and a couple other names in the mess that keeps on revealing self-inflated bigots who won't listen and will likely never change. I found it very insightful, though I seriously had to put on my thinking cap to read it.

The most interesting part of her essay is about Name Magic, a concept most SF fans know; the power of one's true name gives an opponent power over you. However IRL, in 'meat space' so to speak, Bellatrys argues that in our day to day lives the true power is in not using the real and proper name. That in fact the institutionalized power hierarchy is set up so that individuals who want to belittle or silence you or make you not exist will constantly not use your correct name, bitch about using said correct name, bitch further about having to call you by a group name you specify (ie; blacks, African Americans, African Europeans, Asian Canadians, of Polish Descent), etc...

I hadn't really thought about that before but it pinged to me of my mother being insistent that in America I never let anyone give me any sort of nickname, that my birth name was important and shouldn't ever be set aside. I was pouty and furious because nicknames seemed to be an inclusive thing and not using one seemed to be voluntarily labeling myself an outsider. But now I see that as an adult my mother had far more experience with how teachers and others could have tried to erase me by giving me some diminutive little name, as if I were a pet - or a slave.

There's so much respect involved in naming. We don't call our parents by their first names, in general, and if we do it's not until we're adults ourselves. Mr and Mrs are titles of respect. There was a big deal back in the day about Ms vs Miss and what that said about the speaker and the named. There's the fact that for years white children were expected to call white adults Mr and Mrs, but encouraged to call black adults by their first names or by terms like 'boy'.

Bellatrys even touches on language as a living thing that can be co-opted or twisted and how modern times are times filled with buzzwords and sound bytes that everyone's expected to understand but which actually are codewords or have meanings that are different depending on who started using them, who co-opted them, and who's listening and which meaning they know - the original or the co-opt.

Example:

"Women's Issues are about ALL WOMEN."

Sounds the same as it did at the first stirrings of the feminist movement and women fighting for equal rights and the vote. But along the way of said movement, the women of colour were left by the wayside, forgotten by history, shoved in a corner.

Are there women today who say "Women's Issues are about ALL WOMEN" and they actually mean all women? Sure. But the majority of people using that phrase are white women and the issues they're referencing are white women's issues and when someone really does start bringing up an issue that's more relevant to ALL women than one portion (small portion) of the women in the world - they get told to form their own damn movements and leave feminism to feminists.

Which, by the way I have done. Secular Womanism for me. Hurrah.

But naming and the power of names and the power grabbed by abusing names and not using names and the upset folk have at being called a racist vs having actual concern about BEING a racist - Bellatrys is right, I think. It is all name magic and it is a type of modern sorcery and chicanery that's used to hide hate.

Most potent to me was this bit here that she takes from Alice in Wonderland:

Humpty Dumpty took the book and looked at it carefully. 'That seems to be done right --' he began.

'You're holding it upside down!' Alice interrupted.

'To be sure I was!' Humpty Dumpty said gaily as she turned it round for him. 'I thought it looked a little queer. As I was saying, that seems to be done right -- though I haven't time to look it over thoroughly just now -- and that shows that there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents--'

'Certainly,' said Alice.

'And only one for birthday presents, you know. There's glory for you!'

'I don't know what you mean by "glory",' Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. 'Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'

'But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument",' Alice objected.

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'

'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master -- that's all.'

The added emphasis is mine, btw.

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'

Now, doesn't that sound familiar?

Dear Feminisphere, PUT ON SOME DAMN PANTS

2008-07-19T06:32:00.008-04:00

Heidi Schnackenberg would like to ~~apologise~~ say some MORE SHIT for having written a piece in AlterNet News subtitled Women will continue to be oppressed unless they stop prioritizing other causes over their own.

Can you guess which causes she put on the back burner?

Well for those of you who don't currently have a gold star proudly on your foreheads, I'll link and snip you her FIRST explanation/apology/what-the-fuck-ever which ISN'T on AlterNet. It includes:

I have never met a white feminist who doesn't care deeply about what I have to say. I've always gotten the impression that white feminists would welcome the opportunity to improve women's lives in all the areas I mentioned above. Maybe they don't always know about the issues and don't really know what to say, but I haven't seen an intentional dismissal of the unique needs of women of color (in post- modern times).

Apparently Heidi Schnakenberg wasn't alive earlier this year when shit went down with BrownfemiPower and Amanda Marcotte's utter skankiness.

Ms. Schnakenberg then goes on to drop these gems in her second follow up :

...A friend once described me as the Eminem of feminism—a white person who hasn't had an easy life and has been ostracized by white folks and feels more comfortable with people of color as a result...

... And yes, white women have work to do—they've got to be more inclusive and stop being so ignorant. But I can forgive them a little bit, just like I try to forgive the many white women who were cruel to me when I was growing up, because they are victims themselves...

...I'm not necessarily opposed to intersectionality as a theory--I can understand why women of color, especially, must fight against the piles of oppression stacked up against them. I don't want to get in the way of that, but I see how everything else in that lens--race, class, economics, etc., is taking priority over gender...

...I'm not necessarily asking for a banishment of intersectionality-- I'm asking for reform...

Go click the link for yourself. Read the foolishness first hand. Foolishness that persists even though according to this article, she's raising a biracial child.

I guess she hasn't yet connected to what it means to raise a SON who isn't white. Or maybe she'll raise him to believe he's white, despite her claim to multiculturism. Perhaps that's how she reckons to keep him safe.

If you want to read someone pissed off at Heidi Schnakenberg's rampant privilege go read Ami's Rant Here.

I don't want to rant at this woman. I want to cut a bitch. Because she has the GALL to write this shit:

Ask any white woman who has endured daily street harassment or the multitudes of white women who work in the sex industry; they can assure you that men of all classes, races and nationalities are united in the pleasure they take in seeing all types of women being sexually humiliated. If that fact alone doesn't unite white women and women of color, I don't know what will.

All I got to say to her is BITCH SHUT THE FUCK UP. Because I see a parade of little black girls that white women didn't give a fuck about; raped and murdered and tossed to the side. The daughters of their maids and cooks. I see the fucking parade of black women who get tossed to the side everyday too - but don't let no little blonde female go missing. Post modern times my black ass.

RAMONA MOORE. RAMONA MOORE. RAMONA MOORE

Also = Commenter Jan VanDenBerg on the Alternet article? StormFront's calling you to join their ranks. You ARE racist enough.

Carnivals!

2008-07-17T13:54:00.011-04:00

If you wanted to submit something to the 11th PoC Carnival of Sci Fi & Fantasy, the deadline's tomorrow, July 18th. Information on where to submit here at Part 1 of the Carnival.

Also...

~ Announcing the Women of Color & Beauty Carnival ~

"This Carnival is intended to focus on beauty and what it means to and about women of color. In particular, I would like to see discussion go beyond a focus on the ways in which women of color can internalize self hatred to the ways in which women and communities of color recognize and celebrate beauty." -- Delux Vivens

What does beauty mean to women of color?

What is the difference between beauty and ethnically based sexual stereotyping?

How does stereotyping and white supremacy affect our concepts of beauty, and how can we create change?

What kind of responsibility do white women who identify as allies have to analyze and take ownership of their privilege in this area?

How do popular standards of beauty based on generalized whiteness affect our relationships with ourselves, each other, and between different groups of people of color?

Carnival submission deadline is August 5. Please post submissions here.

The Carnival will be posted at the livejournal community YENNENGA.

Who's Been Eating The Tainted Rye?

2008-07-15T06:37:00.004-04:00

There's more William Sanders PROVES HE LIVES TO BE A JACKASS over at the ever classy and gracious Tobias Buckell and clicking to the very next post there shows links to Sanders' decision to charge writers who no longer wish to be associated with him and his magazine.

And then there's the New Yorker and WTF ever they were smoking when they published this:

I'm tired. I'm really tired right now. It may be a good thing that the whole world's gone mad and decided to show us who is who by them all frothing at the mouth and doing other things to show their level of madness (~~cause surely such levels of stupidity and bigogtry and racism have to be as un-yet denoted mental illness~~). No, madness, mental illness is a disease. These people make choices. They consciously decide to be this way or do these things.

But I am tired. It's a lot all at once and it feels like the best solution is to line some individuals up against a wall. Except I'm aware that this is a symptom of the very wrong choice group they continually make. So I just need a rest.

I just need a rest.

This may not be the most coherent

2008-07-13T23:39:00.004-04:00

So I finally get my hands on the updated New Universal.

I'm a few pages into issue 3.

I'm upset.

But let me put a word down first: Post Evolutionary Being. I'll get back to that.

[ POTENTIAL SPOILERS FOLLOW.....]

*

*

*

*

A premise so far in the new* New Universe is that when superhumans show up within humanity, they should be hunted down and killed because when a different, a superior, form of life emerges, evolves, it annihilates the weaker competition. So humanity, to save itself, must destroy these superhumans.

And y'know I couldn't, I honestly couldn't help thinking about Obama, black and white politics in America and the concept of reverse racism. I really and honestly couldn't. It's the only similarity to what I was reading that I could think of to wrap my brain around the concept that fear was going to, and in the past had led to, antagonism and murder (including infanticide).

I know I've always kind of boggled at the fear that 'If black people get power and things become truly equal, they'll push that power right into a revenge scenario and whites will end up enslaved and suffering' . The fear is so big, is so prevalent that that's where the concept of reverse racism comes from; people want to make that possibility seem to be happening now in order to excuse their actions which result in in-equality, sometimes extreme actions and often things which are brutal and inhuman. As a side note, something can be subtle but brutal at the same time. White is beautiful, black is ugly, the lighter you are, the more desirable you are? Subtle. But brutal. It results in generations that are incapable of accepting their ancestral features. It results in them feeling lesser and if they feel lesser and someone is also treating them as lesser, well, there's less chance of that revolution, isn't there?

I have always boggled at this concept of the 'inevitable race war'. As if white folk really do believe that just like with the French Revolution when Marie Antoinette got her pretty little neck sliced from her body, there will be a Race Revolution the MOMENT, the exact MOMENT, black and brown folk, but particularly black folk, get any sort of 'real power'. There's talk of "But when it comes down to it, you know which side he (Obama) or she (Halle Berry, Mariah Carey, Beyonce, whomever) will pick."

Fuck damn it makes humanity seem small; really, really, really fucking small.

And what's complex and confusing to me is that I had a similar sequence of thoughts while watching 'An Inconvenient Truth'. I found myself thinking that George Carlin, in his stand up routine, was right. Humanity, which I've lately found myself thinking of as Western White Humanity, is full of itself and yet in reality IS really fucking small.

And yes I realize that Western White Humanity isn't the only aspect of humanity that's concerned about the environment or how we move forward. But, and this is a big but, Western White Humanity is in the position of power, of having used resources in a certain way with a certain carelessness for a certain period of time and is now having to deal with the fact that the earth doesn't give two rat shits about 'Western White Humanity' as a concept.

That is, the Earth adapts. If the ice caps flood and the land sinks and new species have to evolve and other species die, the Earth will still keep going. What's in danger is civilization as we currently know it. In other words, Western White Humanity isn't really at the top of the food chain, not when it comes with to the Earth and how it's affected and how those effects will affect humanity. The only reason to be concerned about maintaining the Earth, protecting the environment, caring about the ozone layer and the shifting weather patterns caused by carbon increases and heat indexes rising and more fresh water ice caps falling into the salt water seas effecting current circulation patterns and thus livability on varied land masses - is because a type of homeostasis is needed in order for things to remain the same; things to remain as they are, with no land loss and no dramatic weather pattern changes which can change growing seasons and where populations are able to live.

Post Evolutionary Being. I told you I'd get back to that. The concept in the issue of New Universal I'm currently reading is that it means a being that isn't going to, that doesn't have to, compete for resources. It's a concept of 'the next stage'. Which brings me to the concept of the 'inevitable race war'. Why is it that there's this general fear that should the oppressed become equal, they will in turn become the oppressors? And so the oppressors must never, EVER, let there be an opportunity for the tables to turn.

I know, I know that's happened in Russian Communism. The working men became the new elite and the previous bourgeoisie classes became the working poor; reviled and hated and without resources and in the middle there was corruption. But you see, that's because revenge can happen in a REVOLUTION. Like Marie Antoinette and the Guillotine. If people have to shed blood to get the median, most basic measure of respect (and good leadership) then of course revenge will play a factor, and a large one at that. Emotions and passions are alight when blood needs to be shed for a cause, usually because what's wanted, and what's needed has to be pried from the cold dead fingers of those previously in power.

So is this what White America, White Western Civilization is saying? That the only way equality could ever come, is when it's pried from their cold, white (purple) fingers? Therefore they're going to do everything possible to ensure that revolution never happens?

And if that is the working theory, how the fuck are they going to get that to work? It seems pretty obvious to me that the more you stamp down a group, the angrier you make that group. The more likely they are to pull towards leadership that tells them they have every right to be angry....

Which leads me to comics again, because doesn't that sound a lot like the true magnetism of Magneto? That he just stood there and let non mutant humanity do all his hard work for him? He let their bigotry lead his followers right to him? That he believed their time had come, doesn't change the fact that non mutant humanity believed it too and believed there was no way they could ever possibly understand... 'those people'.

And ok, that was an unconscious crackshot at 'worm brained mentality' but it's not just in discussing possible terrorists that one finds such a phrase. There are straights who feel they'll never understand gays - cause for crying out loud they push shit out of their asses, why would they want to imagine something going in. And yes, they never seem to put lesbians in the same eeeewh category. But then again in the hierarchy currently on earth, lesbians are women and women aren't at the top.

I used to think it was guilt, that it was white guilt about slavery and all the horrible, horrid, torturous, bloody history there. And the guilt made them incapable of believing that a people could want just to move on and be seen for who they are individually and for the pain to be understood but without a need to lash every white person alive to a pole and give them a marked brand to remember; an ache in the bones to last through generations. But I'm not too sure anymore it is 'white' guilt. And I'm not too sure it's guilt. I think it's fear. I think it's self absorption and hubris and fear.

So much of history on this planet has been about conquest. And for such a long, long, long ass, old ass, time, Western White Civilization have been the conquerors and everyone else has been the conquered. And even among themselves Western White Civilization was fighting about who would be SUPREME CONQUEROR and who would be the one with the smaller dick. And in that kind of paradigm there is no moving forward, there is no something for everyone. There are winners and losers and if they are no longer the winners well that means they're the losers and losers suffer because they've been making the losers suffer for so long. Making the losers suffer is what they'd do, it's what they know.

It's twisted, I think. Because it means that people who tell me they just want to understand and learn, really do understand. They understand about being made into victims and about being put in a place of powerlessness. Because IT'S WHAT THEY FEAR. That's why they don't like to think about it. That's why it's removed from their day to day consciousness. And the most forward thinking, the supposedly liberals are the most aware, which is why they're so easily affronted at any hint they have more to learn/ they've gotten some things wrong/ they've prioritized wrong, because they KNOW just how small they are, how small White Western Civilization really is; the Earth's only been telling them that for the last thirty years or so.

Which is all a long winded way of my saying that I don't know if I can follow New Universal when it starts up in the fall, because the long arc plot to stay on top no matter what, is shit I deal with every damn day. And I really don't want to watch another group dealing with murdered children and fear mongering and propaganda and violence and this acceptance from leaders, from supposedly moral/ethical examples that a stealthy campaign of othering is the right choice. This whole "They're not human -enough-. They're not like us. Our way of life as we know it is more important than any measured thinking, any change, any new possibilities..."

Especially, especially, when the meta of such an argument in NU is that when in the past there had been a time with acceptance, the whole of humanity moved forward. That's just too painful to bear.

______________

* Premise: If this premise was in the old version my childhood self reading it, missed it - I got the comics all out of sequence and order and tried to piece the story together myself.

The Romans brought devastation, but they called it peace

2008-07-10T21:01:00.018-04:00

Following links surrounding the "BUT YOU CAN'T PUBLISH MY RACIST REJECTION LETTER!", I came across a beautiful gem from Betty Candy on The Hathor Legacy.

The essay is entitled; Why film schools teach screenwriters not to pass the Bechdel test. Wikipedia 'Bechdel Test' with 'Dykes to Watch Out For' if you need a definition. This essay is simply beautiful, simply brilliant but not for the obvious reason. You see this essay exemplifies to me the mentality of dominant comic book industry powers. And it's summed up beautifully in this part of the final paragraph.

There was no way Hollywood really believed what it was saying about boys who’d grown up with Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor as action heroes, and so there was no way to change the system from within. I concluded Hollywood was was dominated by perpetual pre-adolescent boys making the movies they wanted to see, and using the “target audience” - a construct based on partial truths and twisted math - to perpetuate their own desires. Having never grown up, they still saw women the way Peter Pan saw Wendy: a fascinating Other to be captured, treasured and stuffed into a gilded cage. Where we didn’t talk. To each other. About anything other than men.

Why does Dust's niqāb and modest dress, incorrectly referred to in panels as a burqa, have to tug at her body to show the round fullness of her breasts against the black cloth, or pull against the curve of her ass or drape tightly near her waist?

Because Dust is an exotic female other.

Why do female superheroines wear bathing suits without even a modest skirt flap, or not wear pants, or like Misty Knight are portrayed as bra-less with ample bosoms drawn bouncing (despite her level of physical activity, her having been a former cop, or the pull against the flesh her bionic arm would have on her pectoral muscles)?

Because they might be heroes but they're secondary and they should be a bit of decoration and titillation while the real heroes, the white male heroes are getting things done.

Inconvenient and useless peepholes to the navel or chest? Fighting THONGS despite the factual reality of gravity and ride ups? Apparently male heroes think ahead enough to wear a cup to protect themselves in battle. But Wonder Woman, among others, has to stop mid-fight to pick her thong out of her genital cracks or misplace a kicking blow because something just pulled very uncomfortably around her nether lips.

More distasteful and painful for me, within this beautifully rounded theory is the realization that when these men were growing up, there WERE NO minority characters in prominence. So their continued fantasies don't include PoC, or homosexuals, transexuals or the disabled and certainly not anyone over a certain age. These are the fantasies of youth!

Batman Beyond was more ground breaking than I realized when I was watching it on Saturday mornings. Bruce was old but still extremely vital. As was Barbara Gordon! Max was black and female and a genius! Even if she was underused. Dana was Japanese. And even if I couldn't stand her - interracial relationship right there! And Epilogue shows she stayed with Terry to the end (quite possibly life became easier once he told/or she learned of the truth).

So it's not all of this old guard filled with perpetual Peter Pans. But it is enough. Enough that Vixen can't be dark skinned because dark skinned women were never in the youthful sexual fantasies of those now in power. And there's no need for them to pay attention to the message they're sending of "All black men look alike", when they make all the black male heroes bald and only discernible via their costume/colours. Because only politics is forcing them to include black male characters into their power fantasies as other than comic relief and lackeys. So black heroes get stuck in the background as scenery so they don't intrude into the fantasy any more than is absolutely necessary.

Gays? Nonexistent. They never fantasied about queers.

The disabled? Matt Murdock can see via other senses and Barbara Gordon used to be a librarian so she's used to sitting on her ass all day. Do note too that Barbara in a wheel chair didn't come alive as a three dimensional character until Gail Simone ¹ because her childhood fantasies sure as hell included a whip-smart woman and a whip smart woman wouldn't let her still functioning brain go to waste.

Transexuals? Please. They're only good for odd bodyswitching arcs for a good laugh. Cause 'eeewh'.

Polynesians? uhmmm What?

East Asians? Hey, we have kungfu masters! Ok, kung fu master who teach white guys! But they're there doing their job, giving the Western world a mystical edge!

South Asians? ...? What's a South Asian?

Middle Easterners? Aren't they always the enemy? We've got plenty of bad sheiks.

North Africans? Say what? Huh, Egypt's in Africa?? Well I guess we have a couple mystical Egyptian powers somewhere, granted to white folk. But that's all mummy's and crap. Oh, Morocco is in North Africa? They have all those women in the mysterious sexy clothing. Total scene background.

South Africans? This isn't a political comic.

Over at K-Box in the Box, Kirk's been keeping track of the sales of Brand New Day. They're not good. And there's talk pooled in corners of the blogsphere about the division growing in Spidey fans because one man got the chance to re-create from scratch his adolescent fantasy about his hero.

In a follow up essay, Betty Candy goes on in another brilliant piece of layered out thinking to discuss the perpetuation of biases and promotion of pro Anglo Westernism and how laziness and stubbornness prevents industry from mining profit from disenfranchised groups.

Laziness and stubbornness .... put them in a pot, stir them around what do you get? Fear of change.

I had someone anonymously comment to one of my recent posts that 'being PC is thought control and changes language by cutting out and forgetting words and phrases'. I'm summarizing, mind you because they sure as hell aren't getting a direct c/p for such tripe. Tripe, because languages change! English wouldn't exist if German and Latin hadn't changed, if Greek hadn't changed. Dutch wouldn't exist if German hadn't changed. The languages that don't change, DIE. Languages also die, because the people who speak it were ignored or killed. A living language often means a living people, non-stagnant, a growing, evolving civilization.

The language of film is stagnant at the core, around the edges, in independents and minority supported festivals it's changed and so lives and grows.

The language of comics is also stagnant at the core. Around its edges are small supported projects, trickles, where there's growth and diverging pathways, where new words are discovered and shared and with it new ways of seeing the world.

I can't help thinking about the fact that Rome fell. It didn't fall in a day. But fall it did and now we have what's left after the ravages of the Dark Ages took their due. There are monuments and clues and hints as to this great civilization and the amazing thought they had at the time. But then they stagnated; they dismissed and tried to ignore others, the need to change, the fact that some words, some concepts would need to be put aside in order for new growth,like a plant that needs pruning, Change was smothered; and while it struggled for breath, it was maybe even laughed at.

The world is changing. The audiences are changing and becoming more global. Film should change. Publishing should change. Comics, should change. They should expand and incorporate. They should be more than the old glory dreams of a priviledged few, who fiddle while it all burns around them.

_____

1. I am corrected by LurkerWithout, who's been corrected by Elayne Re: Simone & Ostrander / ie Kim Yale (Ostrander).

I <3 my readership! I<3 that I have readership.

The person who invents 'Shoot Whitey' as a video game will make a shitload of money.*

2008-07-09T04:06:00.007-04:00

I shouldn't have pressed the link to the Asimov forum. I stumbled right into the phrase I hate the most.

"standard issue example of political correctness run amok"

If there was anything that'd make me pull a gun (I do not own) and pop a cap in someone's ass....actually that wouldn't be satisfying enough. A tranquilizer dart and as many hours as I needed to painfully instruct them as to their wrong thinking is likely the only thing that would soothe me.

I hate this phrase. It's bullshit.

It's an idiot's excuse to be bigoted, biased and prejudiced.

Treating human beings, thinking of them and responding to them and their lives with respect and a sense of equality has been reduced to doing what's politically viable in modern times. As if anti-racism (or anti-homophobia/transphobia/religious tolerance) were a damn lobbyist group(s) to be appeased if they throw enough money.

Being offended at something, even being hurt by it, is minimized with a glib, empty. "Oh that's just taking political correctness too far." aka "You're going all OCD about appeasing the non whites/freaks. Silly ninnny. Don't expect me to stress out that much over folks who don't look/act/pray like me."

And if you happen to be one of the 'Other', being upset and angry about it is over-reacting; "Can't you take a joke? I didn't mean any offense by it. They're just words." Because don't those people get upset about nothing, they should be grateful we're not still whipping them, bombing them, or putting them into camps.

People who open their mouths, or type out their thoughts online and communicate the concept of political correctness going out of control - I immediately identify as not being worth my time. There's not even a way to breed that level of stupidity out. You just have to wait for the idiots to die and their seed to be stamped out forever.

This means of course my torture fantasies about painfully making them get the point, are really all about me getting to hurt, humiliate and dehumanize them. It's revenge fantasy because sometimes you need the middle road instead of the higher one. And no, I'm not taking any requests to dominate submissive white men and call them little piggy worm nothings. Cause that's still all about them and my world's too full of their wants and needs and influence sprawled everywhere like a fart on the world that never airs out.

[* Yes I'm aware my title is inflammatory. I did say sometimes I need to take the middle ground instead of the high.]

Heavens Give Me Strength...

2008-07-08T09:48:00.008-04:00

"Your actions, which I'm calling unprofessional, which exposed my racism/prejudice/extreme America-centrism and privilege mean that you will never have a story accepted by our magazine."

The above is my summary of the comment left by an editor, Mr W. Sanders, of Helix SF Magazine in response to a lj posted comment revealing his personal rejection letter on a particular story.

Last post a sociology major was telling people of colour that they were doing it wrong. He's got a degree and he knows people of colour don't use the term people of colour anymore. Also, white allies need to stop being sanctimonious in pointing out racism.

This post it's an editor who first refers to - hell I'm going to c/p it.

No, I'm sorry but I can't use this.

There's much to like. I'm impressed by your knowledge of the Q'uran and Islamic traditions. (Having spent a couple of years in the Middle East, I know something about these things.) You did a good job of exploring the worm-brained mentality of those people - at the end we still don't really understand it, but then no one from the civilized world ever can - and I was pleased to see that you didn't engage in the typical error of trying to make this evil bastard sympathetic, or give him human qualities.

However, as I say, I can't use it. Because Helix is a speculative fiction magazine, and this isn't speculative fiction.

Oh, you've tacked on some near-future elements at the end, but the future stuff isn't in any way necessary to the story; it isn't even connected with it in any causal way. True, the narrator seems to be saying that it was this incident which caused him to take up the jihad, but he's being mendacious (like all his kind, he's incapable of honesty); he was headed in that direction from the start, and if it hadn't been the encounter with the stripper it would have been something else.

Now if it could be shown that something in this incident showed him HOW the West could be overthrown, then perhaps the story would qualify as SF. That might have been interesting. As it is, though, no connection is shown and in fact we are never told just how this conquest - a highly improbable event, to say the least - came about.

There are some other problems with the story, but there's no point in going into them, because they don't really matter from my viewpoint. It's not speculative fiction and I can't use it in my magazine.

And I don't think you're going to sell it to any other genre magazine, for that reason - though you'd have a hard time anyway; most of the SF magazines are very leery of publishing anything that might offend the sheet heads. I think you might have a better chance with some non-genre publication. But I could be wrong.

Sorry.

William Sanders
Senior Editor
Helix

___

Please note: It's on the internet and I'm reposting it. And I think Mr. Sanders is just realizing one of the harsh realities of racism - assuming the person he's speaking to / writing to is 'one of his' and not 'one of them'. That is, he assumed it was safe to to 'tell the joke' or 'make the comment' and didn't think about the impact of his words.

Which is an odd thing for an editor to do, don't you think? Not to think about the impact of his words.

This ended up online due to the common practice of sharing rejection letters with fellow friend writers. That it happened online vs offline doesn't change the practice or suddenly pull a veil of privacy over the communication. It's a rejection letter, a piece of official mail by a representative of a company.
___

Remember my summary at the top? Here's the link to Sander's actual response to the posting. It's a responding FU. It truly is.

Actual Excerpt:

Of course none of these people have read the story, and so they fail to grasp the context - that I was talking not about Muslims, or Arabs, or Oompa Loompas or any other religious or ethnic group, but about terrorists and violent extremists. (That being, after all, what your story was about.)

Yes, Mr. Sanders. I believe you. Not. 'Cause you see, last time I checked, no one was calling Timothy Mcveigh or the Creationists who built a museum, 'sheet heads'. Also, can you point me to the homeland of the Oompa Loompas and their holy/sacred buildings? Cause that little titbit was news to me. Seriously it was.

ETA: The original poster, the writer who received the rejection letter, has commented to this entry pointing out a fuller explanation at his blog here. He's alarmed and aghast at the outcry and says Mr. Sanders is being taken out of context. So, I have asked him, given the content of his comment and that blog entry if he was the originator of the terms Mr. Sanders used in the rejection letter (here). I will update with his answer should I get a response.

The response from Luke aka Solipcyst.Blogspot.com. He did not word feed Mr. Sanders the bigoted and racist words.

PoC Comments Only

2008-07-07T04:52:00.004-04:00

If you're on Livejournal, you may want to go to admin console and input this list:

ban_set 304_pinkkiller
ban_set ____kungfukym
ban_set __knoxville891
ban_set _white_trash_
ban_set aballard23
ban_set amazinggoatgirl
ban_set american_midol
ban_set angelwings01
ban_set arielost
ban_set blasphemusfish
ban_set blue_marker
ban_set now_bionic
ban_set oncolgist
ban_set oobugletteoo
ban_set overandoverture
ban_set paradoxx181
ban_set pishu_x
ban_set pulmonary_blue
ban_set redmeatmolly
ban_set regionalradical
ban_set shotgun_blast
ban_set simplypeace
ban_set siriusblueyes
ban_set smillee
ban_set snowowl
ban_set soapboxrhetoric
ban_set stucking_foned
ban_set tres_faux
ban_set twentyfours
ban_set uniquelyevil
ban_set vegaseddie
ban_set wvusublime
ban_set zombie_poison

Then press execute.

There, you've just banned from your journal the latest round of idiots who feel like tossing the N-word around, with macros in order to tell people to lighten up and stop being sanctimonious. Cause they have PoC friends and that excuses everything.

You may want to pay particular attention to now_bionic who went and started a community. wtf_racist where she or he is advocating inbox harassment.

Why the sudden outpouring of ... whatever the gut wound that is? Stupidity? Racisim? Stupid racism? Dumb White Shit? I have no clue. It started with a fish and then sank into calling individuals who left because of what was happening "gay homosexual"s.

It's almost as if someone finds it funny to play comment insults. Seriously, people who think throwing around words like fag and n***** only offends 'Sanctimonius white people'? (and left unspoken 'Uppity Negroes')...

I have no words for you. No actually I do have words. But they boil down to 'may you be eaten alive by fire ants and die several hours later'. I'm trying not to use fuck as a swear word anymore. It's stupid. Fucking is fun when it's consensual, why the hell would I wish them pleasure? Or lower myself to wish them violation? Nahh, eat shit and die works better, as well as 'die with fire ants swarming out your eyes and anus'.

tetrabinary: Also..."People of Color" isn't the PC term we use anymore. As a matter of fact, it was said by Malcolm X, MLK and Farrakhan that the term "colored" is considered insulting...but I'm sure you already knew that.

Fact is, I know more about the civil rights movement and racism than you could ever hope to know, I specialized in it as a sociology major

Yes, you invoke Malcolm X and MLK and Farrakhan in the same sentence, despite Malcom's views later in life and MLK's public views for most of his life and you majored in sociology. This makes you an expert. This makes you An enlightened white dude and to hell with privilege.

Just... I've seen bloggers try to explain the shit PoC deal with day in day out. I've mentioned unpacking the backpack. I've pointed out Tim Wise. And seriously. SERIOUSLY? At the end of the bloody day....

Listen, if you're white, and on lj, copy the damn list but don't even bother to comment. I need to not hate you pale faces on sight before I interact again. Just not fucking loathe you and all your history and backstabbing and stepping on the back of, raping of women and children, de-humanizing, dragging bodies behind your fucking cars, spitting on people in public, pale ass dog fucking selves again.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph. If you really had a clue, really had a fucking clue you'd fucking treasure your real POC friends cause you'd guess how much it takes not to spit in every drink handed over and imagine -you- lynched for saying dumb ass shit and expecting to be forgiven because 'ooops, but I'm white'.

G'damn but there must be a scent that the rest of us just get used to with all that festering in your souls and dna.

A Thought

2008-07-06T10:16:00.003-04:00

I just watched "An Inconvenient Truth".

If Al Gore is Jor-El, who is baby Kal-El? And what is the spaceship? Earth?

Ahem!

2008-07-04T23:03:00.004-04:00

Look, I realize that some of you are all about eating too much burned meat and potato salad right now. But the DISCUSSION for the 11th PoC in SF Blog Carnival is HAPPENING RIGHT NOW.

Why aren't you there?

I find it hard to believe that those of you who comment to this journal have absolutely no thoughts and nothing to say.

The entry is open to OPENID and Signed Comments. So you don't even have to login; just sign a name to the bottom.

I'm waiting for someone from this 'sphere to say something intelligent about Xavin from Runaways and the creator/editorial choice to make him black - just for starters. Personally I think there's likely opportunities to discuss how the black man, in particular, in America must become a chameleon and blend in and seem unobtrusive and unthreatening which just aren't happening in Runaways. Though maybe it's happened recently and I've just missed it.

I'm waiting for someone to say something about Blade and Shaft. C'mon. You know you wanna.

I'm waiting for someone to make a comment about finding Samurai in Space.

SA Comments - Not Moving

2008-07-03T04:44:00.004-04:00

About a month ago I began researching alternatives to blogger's in house comment system and I came across ~~Disqus~~. I made some pithy remarks that Livejournal was becoming less special now that bloggers could find away to create the same kind of community feel.

But before I use almost anything, I read the TOS and Privacy Policies first to make a decision about whether or not I want to take the risk. So I emailed ~~Disqus~~ and asked if I was somehow missing the links to their TOS and Privacy Policy. One of the owner/creators emailed me back and said it would be 'coming soon' and gave me a link to their general FAQ.

Their easily found general FAQ which I'd already scoured.

But no worries, right? I could wait a bit. They seemed on the ball so putting up their polices was bound to happen.

Tonight I emailed Daniel Ha again, because I haven't seen on the ~~Disquss~~ blog, any mentioned of a TOS or Privacy Policy. Each new feature gets a blog post, but there's no mention of a TOS or PP. Do note their competitors; Intense Debate(?), Haloscan, Sez Who, FriendFeed all have a TOS and Privacy Policy.

A little while ago I got back a reply to my second query which mentions that without a TOS or PP I'm researching other/alternative systems for my needs.

Daniel Ha's response: Good Luck

I was excited about this product and really I just wanted to cross my t's and dot my i's and be aware before signing on. Now given my personality I will likely never use this service. And the email goes into my 'idiots and jackasses' folder.

Why do people have to get in their own way ?

Possible Tag: !=customer service

People of Colour in SciFi & Fantasy Carnival

2008-07-03T04:06:00.003-04:00

POC In Sci-Fi Carnival #11 - The Eye Of The Beholder

‘Human beings fear difference,’ Lilith had told him once. ‘Oankali crave difference. Humans persecute their different ones, yet they need them to give themselves definition and status.'
-- Octavia Butler's Xenoginis - Adulthood Rites, P80-81

Hosted on Livejournal by Abydosangel, the 11th Carnival focuses on things the media uses to demonstrate or mark characters and environments as Alien or Other that to POC are common place and everyday. How what makes us, us becomes alien culture, or signs of alien being and self. Making our cultural signifiers all about "a stranger in a strange land."

This 11th Carnival has a different format than usual. Discussion is open now in comments and the main entry will be edited to show submitted links (which can be added via comment or emailed to the host). The deadline for submitting links found online or links to your own thoughts in an essay format is JULY 18th 2008.

I admit to finding it an unusual format, but one I think works for this Carnival's theme and topic. This Carnival is about PoC discussing this othering in the genre and for Allies to discuss how they absorbed these perceptions, or began to see past them, or need help realizing them.

Please go look, read Abydosangel's thoughts, think and SAY SOMETHING.

--

The 10th Carnival, by the way, was posted on June 5th at Karnythia's livejournal, HERE. I was moving and without net access so it didn't get promoted as it usually does here on Seeking Avalon.

The 10th's Carnival's focus was on People of Colour in Young Adult Fiction; characters and creators. There are several insightful pieces; one in particular on Jacob Black of Twilight fame and another that stands out immediately about the Princess Problem. We've all dealt with the former in some form or other. But for PoC, there's always, always the added detail that most, practically all of the Princesses don't look like our little girls.

Please don't anyone comment here and bring up Mulan. Disney makes it quite clear that Mulan is a heroine, NOT A PRINCESS. She's not included among the princesses.

Go, read, think, enjoy.

Untitled (cause it would be cuss words)

2008-07-01T19:35:00.004-04:00

Dear World,

WHAT IN HELL'S FIVE BLEEDING BUTT HOLES IS THIS SHITE?

This shite right here

Dazzler is the only, only, reason I give even a little damn for Marvel. Everything that I want to read about Misty Knight has already been published. Dazzler is the only Marvel news I will tolerate.

But what in Beezlebub's non virgin arse is that shite? The 80's poofy hair. The unnecessary I'm in the Matrix and need to be connected to the machines via my fricking navel peep hole in the fucking costume??

I've heard flickerings that Marvel's been taking two heaping steps backwards for every mincing toe nudge forwards. But WHAT THE FUCK?

Why a new look? WHY?

Why a new costume that's more ridiculous than the original?

But Willow, you might be saying in your head right now, mentally constructing a reply. Consider the source, you might be thinking.

To which I pre-emptively reply: "Do I look rational to you, bub?" I gave up on Misty. I gave up on Monica. I gave up on consistency with Scott 'gotta love him' Summers. I gave up on the X-Men making ANY Deity Dammned Sense At ALL. And now there's this shite?

THIS SHITE?

Oh yeah, and as if to rub my nose in it and spank my ass like I was some collared and naughty puppy-girl. Here. Is. Storm.

Yes, Storm, Ororo Monroe, Queen of Wakanda, Goddess of Weather has a fricking peek-a-boo navel bearing hole in this updated exoskeleton regurgitation of a costume. I suppose she's lucky though; They gave the easy access porno crotch flap to the white chick.

The one reason I wasn't printing off pictures of the Marvel Execs and buying a dart board - (as satisfying as going postal but without the jail time) - is now gone, just gone just like that.

Shit. Of all the fuckwit titles to bring her back for too. Shit.

Well there goes any reason I have at all for paying attention to Marvel even a little bit.

Shit.

WTF happened to Allison and Excalibur?

Shit. Fuck. Damn. Asssucker. Pirate ball licker. Hairy, inarticulate, mindless capitalistic, automatons of brutal rectal thrusting.

Sht Dmn M*therb**tet

2008-06-30T18:39:00.006-04:00

Apparently PLATINUM STUDIOS is prodding, poking, asking questions, seeking to negotiate to acquire one WOWIO.COM.

I am not pleased.

Wowio is currently down as they prepare to go global. At least that's what the splash page says as explanation as to why I can't catch up on my downloads at the moment. The thought of Wowio being acquired by another company fills me with distrust.

Wowio is just starting out. It's just beginning to see the possibilities for what it's offering. There are so many ways it can go and it's on the front lines carving out the frontier. Becoming a subsidiary just leaves me thinking of no more essays or critical works or magazines or comics from competitors or web comics or indies or non comic / non graphic novel works.

I feel Wowio should remain Wowio and if Platinum Studios wants to get into the digital trade it should bloody well create it's own. Wowio helped me smile about comics again after a year where my only solution, in order to maintain sanity was to walk away from the big Two and take several steps back from Image too.

It seems as if something can't have even a droplet of success online before a bigger company shows up to eat it. Yes they call it buying out, but it feels more like eating/absorption and shitting out of waste. Has Yahoo done ANYTHING with Delicious? Anything at all? No.

Google's been sitting on Jaiku for a while now. And yes, it is Google and Google tends to make things work. But still, Jaiku's been sitting and people have been left waiting.

I had 350 plus items on my Wowio Queue before I moved. There were a lot of comics but there were also a fair amount of novels and documentary style texts; thoughts on serial killers for example or an examination into myths. I hadn't yet touched the essays and magazines/articles.

*sighs*

It likely doesn't help that there's very little about Platinum Comics I enjoy. There's maybe one Platinum title on my Queue and I keep bumping it down anyway.

ETA: Ok this shit right here about how Platinum Studios have messed up paying an artist is NOT giving me good thoughts about the future of Wowio and the creators who were previously getting $.50 a download. Nor am I feeling good about what consumers/readers will be getting if they have to deal with someone whose reputation is besmirched like that. Cause WTF???

Unwanted

2008-06-30T03:25:00.005-04:00

This review of WANTED(the movie) got me curious enough to actually read the comic. I only knew the basics and even with just the basics I could see the difference between the Fox and Angelina fricking skinny ass Jolie.

I'm beginning to think, however, that I'd have enjoyed the comic more before my therapist and former roommate spent the last four years teaching me and nurturing in me an empathy for my fellow man.

I'm also struck by a couple of other things. For one, apparently Millar doesn't have the balls to say the N-word even though that's what he wants to imply all over the first two issues with 'African American Boss'.

I'm also having issues with the term lesbian being used as a swear word and negative and the phrase 'faggoty fear'. I feel like saying:

Dear Mark Millar,

Gay men have to face the possibility of beatdowns for most of their lives, from their parents to random jackoffs on the street. They're the last men in the world allowing a fear of being punched in the face to rule their lives. If you know they're gay? They're some of the bravest men you'll ever meet, you lazy, racist, homophobic, pasty fear filled white boy.

But maybe I should finish reading the whole thing first and see if there's some layered meaning that's, woosh, flying over my head. I mean a white guy in the comic industry back in 2003/2004 could have been doing a commentary on psychosis and how the corporate lock-step life involves a level of de-individualizing of self that can lead to a break from reality and wanton violence.

His work on The Authority could also have been a challenging dialogue on rape, masculinity, an imbalance of power, how it leads to conquest/domination and the definition of evil. What do I know?

If I don't follow up with another post, however, then know that Mark Millar has joined Bendis in the pile of 'Crock of Shit' I reserve to those seriously lacking imagination and substituting it with generic, fear filled, masturbation material.

Like Ink On The Funny Pages...

2008-06-27T02:11:00.000-04:00

Like a comic book or soap opera, this past weekend I had an event occur in my life that leans towards momentous. And some of what happened is relevant enough for me to post here.

My parents are divorced and I've always known that was a good thing. My parents were doing a 'War of the Roses' way before the movie and with far more friction. So with that kind of animosity, there have been looooooong stretches in my life where I didn't have contact with my other parent.

I spent the whole of Monday with my Dad. It's likely what I'd have dreamed up if some Superman interstellar villain threw that black tentacly plant on my chest.

When we got to talking about comics, I discovered that according to my Dad, I hunted out Batman comics on my own. He read to me from Marvel - he liked them best. And it turns out the reason I've always known so much about the X-men is because he read me those.

Dear Marvel, please stop fucking up. You have so much potential to bring generations together if only you didn't treat continuity like a solo sex soaked skcuzy sock that gets tossed into the bottom of the laundry hamper.

Anyway, I turned my Dad onto Wowio.Com and the indies there. I can't wait until Wowio finishes their website clean-up (they're going global) and re-opens mid-July. There are definitely some things I'd like to share with my Da.

Willow Thinks Thinky Thoughts

2008-06-22T14:26:00.002-04:00

Ami of Ami's SuperCute Rants Of Dooooom, has been having a back and forth with a bit of an arsewipe re: trans issues. That's not something I'm going into since the arsewipe in question identifies as a radical feminist which, along with the current lack of listening, tells me everything I need to know about them and their ability to absorb complex issues.

Moving away from the middle class white woman with drama, I want to talk about the first two sentences that begin her (the radfem's) main thoughts.

"I don't believe in gender as a true concept, I believe it is a social construct. I do not believe that there are any qualities which are innately 'male' or 'female', but that human beings are conditioned from birth to behave in a certain way based solely on their genitalia."

I read those sentences and I couldn't read any further. Now, given replies and posts about the spew coming from that direction, my mind was already going in one direction. But the reason I couldn't read any further is because I felt, reading those two lines, that I knew EVERYTHING this individual was basing their thoughts on.

You see I was struck with how very cisprivileged that statement is. If I'm wrong (about this or other things) and you're trans or trans allied, please do correct me. Ami in particular (who graciously looked over this post's drafts for me). I'd hate to be going down the wrong path. But that statement just smears with privilege to me. How can it not be a privilege to be able to believe that gender is purely a social construct if you yourself have no personal trials in the area?

If how you see yourself and how you feel matches up to your genitalia then how the hell can you be in any position to judge whether or not something is a social construct? How can it not be a fricking GIFT to be able to think of the whole thing as a academic excersize? As theory?

How the hell would you have any perspective at all in how social conditioning can go AGAINST something innate?

Now, I might not be able to accurately judge socialization in terms of being trans, but I know I butted up against socialization in terms of being queer. Who I was, how I walked, how I dressed, how I talked, how I sat, how I laughed it ALL was judged. And a lot of the times I was told I was being too boyish. The fear of course was that I'd turn out to be a 'mannish woman' which was another word, culturally, for DREADED LESBIAN.

Bully for my family, it happened anyway.

But I do have the personal experience of who I was, what came naturally to me, being classified as wrong and inappropriate. And no, that doesn't confirm the concept of gender as a social construct only. Because I have the experience of feeling bristled and being chastized for my innate actions and expressions of self as being wrong.

Innate actions.

Expressions of self.

And in my case they all revolved around a fear of masculinity.

There was something within me that was naturally a certain way. And I say was, because truthfully it's all screwed up now and I don't really know if who I am is who I am, or who I decided was the least conflicting way to be. Now, people can debate all they want about how the traits I expressed as a child, which my family feared, came to be labeled masculine. Go ahead, knock yourself out. The point is, those traits came from within me.

So yes, I can absolutely understand that the innate expression of self can be contrary to how society would like to label. And I can absolutely understand and believe that at some point when a child stops thinking of themselves as just THEMSELVES and starts personally, mentally, applying pronouns that the one they reach for naturally, the one that feels right, could bloodly well be the opposite to their outside parts.

Are they absorbing socialization? Who the fuck cares. Until we live in a society that actively uses only gender neutral pronouns and the qualities of physical sex are only relevant as to whether or not you'll be the one to carry a child if you so decide to have children - then human beings have two genders; male and female. At some point in their life someone realizes that THIS is them, be it male or female. This is what resonates, this is who and how they are.

And there are some incredibly courageous people who thenchoose, imagine that, they CHOOSE TO DEAL WITH THE BULLSHIT that currently comes because their inner innie doesn't match their outie, or their inner outie doesn't match their innie; bullshit that's formed by cisgendered pre-conceptions and obsessions about what gender and gender expression is - OUR BULLSHIT. There are women who choose to make sure to present themselves as women, even though they could just shut up and on the surface pass as men. They present who they are inside, even though it means publicly acknowledging the added feelings of vulnerability in a society where women are often treated as commodities. And there are men who deal with bullshit like male emotional repression and the anxieties and fears of women concerning men and issues of manhood and masculinity and the violence that comes with challenging those concepts- but they do it because can't deny who they are.

They CHOOSE to deal with us (society) and the baggage we've hung around gender identity. They decide it/figure it out, like everyone else, but then they have to CHOOSE to deal with the pressure to conform in a way most people never feel. They consciously choose every day to be true to themselves; they wake up and live their lives and present themselves physically as who they feel inside and damn to people who wish otherwise.

Please Note: I'm NOT SAYING that transpeople CHOOSE TO BE A GENDER. THEY DON'T. There is no real choice in choosing to be who you are. YOU JUST ARE. I'm saying that they have a unique opportunity to lie to themselves, to hide themselves, that's what society wants and it's incredibly easy for them to be invisible. I wouldn't even call it a closet, since to come out as trans means to tell someone you are trans vs to simply be at whatever level you're most comfortable. I am in no position what so ever to comment on coming out as trans.And I think it's an illusion to think it's more than briefly similar to coming out as Same Gender Loving. A woman just is a woman (cis or trans). A man just is a man (cis or trans). But there are some men and women who could be invisible so easily; who could ignore or walk away from the progress needed in gender equality issues and perceptions - but they don't.

To me it's somewhat akin to being bi-racial in an era of Jim Crow laws and choosing not to pass; knowing that someone could take your life for looking at the wrong person, for not being timid or grateful enough, or for 'fooling' them into thinking you were one of them when you're not. It's choosing not to pass knowing in the current climate it's legal to kill you if they so decide to (Lynchings were on the books, people). But instead they are choosing to be themselves despite a fuck ass stupid contingent that'd rather point fingers and weep long showy crocodile tears than work towards making this earth a better place.

So with all that said. Is there a transgendered super hero out there in a current and active comic? Is there someone using this analogy of courage to deal with aliens, magic and crazy techno villians?

And if there isn't - why not? Because someone needs to physically show, panel by panel exactly why statements like 'I believe gender is a purely social concept' is but so much privilege and an excuse to try and deny individuals their identities.

[ My thanks to Ami for reading through the drafts AND for her suggestion of Miss Martian, a character with a unique history and struggle to discover herself because she was 'born into a culture where she was seen as an aberration and taught to deny who she is'

I'd also like to note some of my own frustration in tidying up those drafts as I came to realize how important words are when discussing trans issues. Being unaware of the emotional weight of some words that are used to disparage transindividuls, I made some mistakes in word choice and some might still be here.]

Reasons I Don't Like You

2008-06-21T19:31:00.000-04:00

"there are some bad people in that place, and he's going to be exposed to things he's never seen."

Kill a gay man - get three years in prison. ONLY three years.

AND have your family have the fucking nerve to say shit like that and be listened to.

Day in, day out, black teenagers get in similar positions and it is NEVER reasonable that jail will do more harm than good to them. It is NEVER reasonable that they might need substance abuse counseling vs incarceration.

(1) Prisoners of the War on Drugs

(2) Prison Town: Paying the Price

(3) Prisoners of a Hard Life: Women and Their Children

So how's the future looking right now? Well apparently it's close to some combination of Jennifer Government and A Handmaid's Tale.

I never thought the concept of 'a jury of your peers' could be so fucking disgusting.

America's War on The Non White/Non Mainstream Other.

Fanfuckingtastic.

State Of...

2008-06-19T20:55:00.000-04:00

Moved.

Attempting to settle in.

DSL withdrawal. Remedy next week.

In the meantime don't think I'm not trying to keep up, I am.