I'm sorry folks but Gay Marriage isn't this crazy. My moms gay married years ago and they're just a couple of nice old ladies who make really good chocochip cookies.
Lol, I need to reinforce my ears, but this is my cosplay so far, I’m done with my beard, I keep finding beads and stuff to deck out my hair with and I refuse to them Haha!
My big cuffs are curtain rings that I got from Anna’s linens. And I glued on my beard with double sided tape because I didn’t buy my sprit gum yet
Lol
I’ll take a picture of my jacket and tunic soon. I have pictures of one of my dwarf costumes, but I don’t like the angles and how I look lol. But maybe you all aren’t as critical as me lol. I might post them later.
Look at this amazing lady dwarf cosplay! Seriously, if I can get the wig and beard for my Baris costume looking HALF this good, I shall be well satisfied.
I have a similar background. My grandfather was born a poor black child in Texas in the beginning of the 20th Century. By the time the next census was done he was a poor white child living in New Jersey. His parents and siblings basically lost everything in the moving. They had no family backup, no financial legacy to help their fortune. I'm a direct beneficiary of that.
I have very complex feelings about that. On the one hand, I feel like I've been very fortunate that they 'cheated' like that. On the other, I am grateful that my forebears had the guts to do something like that. I don't really know how to do that justice other than to treat everyone equally and as fairly as I am able. And I totally agree with him about the use of the term 'racist.'
I found the case of Rachel Dolezal, the former head of the Spokane, Washington branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) who allowed people to believe she was Black for many years when she was actually White very interesting on a personal level.
The photo I have used to illustrate this blog is my favorite picture of my dad. It was probably taken around 1974, when we lived in Nairobi, Kenya. That is not a perm. That is his natural hair. It’s grey now, and not as much of a ‘fro, but it’s still pretty much the same.
My grandmother, my dad’s mom, had the same sort of hair, although she worked hard to make it look straight. The story passed down in the family is that this hair was because our ancestry included “curly headed Indians.” Only later did I learn that there are no “curly headed Indians.”
The most likely explanation is that someone, not too many generations back in my family was “passing.” In America, you were — and still often are — defined as Black if you had any African ancestry at all. If you were Black it meant you were denied many of the advantages afforded to people who were defined as White. People with African ancestry whose features and skin tone allowed them to deny their African ancestry often did so. If you could pull it off, you got to live in better neighborhoods, go to better schools, get better jobs and blend in with the privileged classes.
Two different times in my life I have lived in places where being defined as a White person meant I was part of a minority. In Nairobi, I got used to the fact that most of the people around me were Black. The police were Black, the politicians were Black, the celebrities were mostly Black. I was in Africa. That made perfect sense. A number of years later I moved to Japan. Comedians in Japan like to put on blond wigs and big rubber noses, do funny nasally voices, and pretend to be White people. I was denied housing at a number of apartments I applied to rent because I was White. In Japan you don’t even have to make excuses about that. It’s perfectly legal.
But I also spent a lot of my growing-up years in Wadsworth, Ohio, an Akron suburb so White that neither my high school graduating class nor the ones before or after mine had any Black people at all. Not even one. You could use the word “nigger” in that town with total impunity, without fear that anyone would call you on it. But I never did. I found it disgusting and stupid. Many of the people I heard use that word when I was in high school had probably never encountered a real Black person in their lives.
My outlook on matters of race may be a little different from most folks who can check off the “Caucasian” box on their census forms. People who don’t know my background take a look at me and assume I’m just a regular White guy and treat me accordingly. In America, that’s usually to my advantage.
I find the subject of race and racism fascinating. I’ve noticed that there is a strong movement in the US these days to define the word “racist” as broadly as possible. The definition has become so broad sometimes that it seems like everyone is a racist. Which means that no one is a racist.
To me, you’re not a racist because you’re a white person who gets nervous when you’re in a convenience store late at night and a male Black teenager in a hoodie walks in. As human beings, we are biologically programmed to try to determine who is in our tribe and who is not. We feel nervous when confronted with those who are outside of our tribe because we do not know if they might also see us as outside of their tribe and therefore be a danger to us.
To me, you are a racist when you take that biological programming and build it up into a complex narrative about superiority and inferiority. You’re a racist when you refuse to engage with anyone outside of your race. You’re a racist when you join with others who share your narrative and together you spend your energy reinforcing the collective ideology of superiority and hatred.
I’ve been seeing a lot of articles bemoaning the phenomenon of “white fragility” when it comes to racism. It is said that we Whites — if I may be so bold as to call myself one — refuse to even listen when told about all of our privileges and our unconscious racism. But I wonder if maybe Whites are so fragile because the definition of racism has changed too much.
I really think we should restrict the word “racist” to cases where people are consciously and deliberately promoting an ideology of superiority/inferiority based on skin color. We shouldn’t be calling people “racists” because, like Louis C.K. said on SNL, they walk into a pizza place, see it’s run by four black women and go, “Hmm.”
Real racists are dangerous, nasty, stupid people. They should be shunned, marginalized, and restricted. When they are police officers and they use their authority to oppress those they consider to be of inferior races we should remove them from service.
But there are also White folks who grew up in places like Wadsworth, Ohio where genuine racism is the accepted norm, who are trying to overcome the prejudices they were raised in but maybe they haven’t quite gotten there just yet. It’s unfair to label them with a word that lumps them in with Nazis, Klansmen, and the asshole who shot up that church in Charleston last week. Of course they’re not going to want to hear that.
That doesn’t mean everything is fine as it is. That doesn’t mean I think racism is over in America. That doesn’t mean we should not try to get better. It just means that I think the word “racist” is far too strong to be applied as broadly as it is often applied in America today.
I don’t feel like I’m going to win this argument, though. I’ve yet to hear anyone else make it (though I might have missed it of they did). Maybe there are sociologists already working on this. But outside of academia we’re calling all sorts of people “racists” who, I think, really don’t deserve it — even if they (we) do need to work on their attitudes. At least if we’re not going to start being more selective about applying the word “racist” maybe we can be a little more understanding about why so few people appreciate being labeled as one.
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I feel the same way about Wagner. Not Mozart, though. Mozart is fucking MAGICAL.
“I wish U2, Paul McCartney and The Grateful Dead could be appreciated by boomers in the privacy of their dining rooms instead of headlining festivals. I’m sick of the music they like being romanticised and glorified. I wish I never had to hear about ‘the genius legend of John Lennon’ ever again. We can be influenced by the past but fuck retro trends, it’s regressive. It robs our generation of our rightful identity in the present. Let’s support the up-and-coming, struggling artists of our generation.”
(”Sophia wanted long straight hair, and she even started expressing a strong dislike for her facial features and skin tone.” Don’t tell me representation, dolls, toys don’t matter to children. Think internalized racism and self hatred happen by accident? It’s rampant among the Black community and Black girls are especially targeted).
This is amazing these dolls should be in everysingle toy store
Thank heavens for Simon, Nora, and Sam. They have their work cut out for them.
Everyone walked around, stretched, chatted, and got ready for the rescues to arrive. They would be nervous and anxious; some would need special help immediately; some would have their young with them. Some just wanted love; others, courage; a couple of them needed to find the will to live. It would be another hard day … and another beautiful day. They took their positions inside the cages as the door to the shelter was unlocked. As the rescues drove into the parking lot, there was a feeling of hope in the air.
I found the case of Rachel Dolezal, the former head of the Spokane, Washington branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) who allowed people to believe she was Black for many years when she was actually White very interesting on a personal level.
