people who go really hard over like hating villains and hating their fanbases and being so disappointed in anyone who so much as shows the slightest appreciation for anything even slightly morally impure are like the obnoxious vegans of fandom
what’s especially infuriating about this attitude is that the goal posts get moved constantly. “it’s fine to like villains as long as you publicly reassure everyone that you’re not romanticizing them”; “it’s fine to like villains as long as you spend just as much time appreciating the heroic characters”; “being actively interested in a villain’s motivations just proves that you’ll do anything to rationalize their behavior”; “it’s not okay to like villains who may be mentally ill because that’s bad representation.”
people might try to frame it as just being concerned that not everyone is being healthy about their villain-love. but really it’s just about getting you to shut up about something they don’t like.
I love villains, the darker normally the better, anyone from Peter Hale, to Loki , to the Joker; even Hannibal. Do I romanticize them sometimes, sure, but I know exactly who and what they are and just how crazy or depraved they may be. There is nothing wrong with finding joy or common ground or even just general interest in the darker side of things. Love what you love, hate what you hate, if other people don’t like it that’s their problem. Don’t let anyone try to bring you down for something you like. Villains. Heroes. Saints. Sinners. Reality. Fiction. You do you.
I’m fine with liking villains. Hell, I like villains! On some level I can accept romanticizing their actions too. But it’s woobifying them I don’t appreciate, trying to erase the bad shit they’ve done and saying they’re “misunderstood” or “Not the real villain” when they’ve done horrible, horrible things for often selfish reasons. They just overlook killing innocent (fictional) people. It kind of fucks up their narrative as a villain when you choose to ignore horrible things they’ve done. And that’s not saying they can’t be sympathetic, just saying that it’s a big part of their character your ignoring when you glance over the fucked up shit or try to excuse it. If they’ve done bad shit, that’s fine! You don’t have to jump through hoops to defend them, they’re villains! Embrace the darkside, nothing wrong with indulging in it with fiction.
Exactly. Love villains all you want but quit blaming the people they hurt for not being understanding enough of their hard past.
One helen is sufficient good looks to launch one thousand ships, and to cause the destruction by fire of an entire city. The objective standards of Ship Launching and Arson may now be used to analyze feminine beauty. […] The table below will be of assistance:
- Attohelen (ah) 10-18 helens: Light up a Lucky While Strolling past a Shipyard
- Femtohelen (fh) 10-15 helens: Burn a Dinner Candle & Spit a Toothpick into a Water Glass
- Picohelen (ph) 10-12 helens: Barbecue a Couple of Steaks & Toss an Inner Tube Into the Pool
- Nanohelen (nh) 10-9 helens: Send the Old Man on a Canoe Trip & Build a Good Roaring Blaze in the Fireplace
- Microhelen (µh) 10-6 helens: Christen a Motor Boat & Start a Grass Fire
- Millihelen (mh) 10-3 helens: Launch One Homeric Warship & Burn Down a House
- Centihelen (ch) 10-2 helens: Incinerate a City Block & Launch Christopher Columbus’ Entire Fleet: The “Niña” (40 tons), the “Pinta” (50 tons) and the “Santa Maria” (100 tons)
- Decihelen (dh) 10-1 helens: Torch the Central Business District of Oakland, California, & Launch the Clipper Ship “Flying Cloud” (1783 tons)
- Helen (h): Raze One City & Launch the WWI US Battleship “Delaware” (20,000 tons)
- Dekahelen (dah) 10 helens: Oversee the Incendiary Bombing of Ten Cities and Launch the Aircraft Carriers “Theodore Roosevelt” (91,487 tons) and “Dwight D. Eisenhower (91,487 tons)
- Hectohelen (hh) 102 helens: Instigate a Major Modern Conflict & Launch the Oil Platform “Stratfjord B” (with ballast, 899,360 tons), the Supertanker “Seawise Giant” (624,038 dead- weight tonnage); the Oil/Ore Carrier “World Gala” (282,460 dwt tonnage) and the Bulk-Ore Tanker “Hoei Maru” (208,000 dwt tonnage)
- Kilohelen (kh) 103 helens: Launch the Equivalent of One Million Greek Warships & Spark a Nuclear Confrontation
- Megahelen (Mh) 106 helens: Launch the Equivalent of One Billion Greek Warships & Blow Up the World
- Gigahelen (Gh) 109 helens: Launch the Equivalent of One Trillion Greek Warships & Destroy the Solar System
- Terahelen (Th) 1012 helens: Launch the Equivalent of One Thousand Trillion Greek Warships and Make Serious Inroads on the Welfare of the Galaxy
It is to be hoped that beauty exceeding the Hectohelen class evades even the most ambitious.
can someone explain the alignment chart for me but in like, the simplest wording possible lmao
lawful good: i want to do the right thing, and following society’s rules is the best way to do that
neutral good: i want to do what’s right, and i’m willing to bend or break the rules as long as no one gets hurt
chaotic good: i’m willing to do whatever it takes as long as it’s to do the right thing
lawful neutral: following the rules of society is the most important thing, and that matters more to me than doing what’s right
true neutral: i just want myself and the people i care about to be happy
chaotic neutral: i want my freedom, and i don’t care what i have to do to keep it
lawful evil: to impede the protagonists (in whatever evil way) is my primary goal, but i follow my own code of morals even when it’s inconvenient
neutral evil: to impede the protagonists (in whatever evil way) is the my primary goal, and while i’ll do what it takes to achieve it, i also won’t go out of my way to do unnecessary damage
chaotic evil: i relish in destruction and want to do as much damage as possible while i try to achieve my primary goal
my #1 hair advice to girls is just. cut it all off. try a pixie cut at least once.
“ohh but I don’t have the face for one”
okay but 90% of men have equally short hair and nobody tells them they “don’t have the face for it”.
free yourself. try a pixie cut.
and if you don’t like it, the great part about hair is that it grows out. rock a beanie or some bandannas for a few months and your hair will be longer again.
okay, most of what i do re: harry potter is criticism, and hp is flawed in such a number of ways, but sometimes i just sit here and
i mean, you all have a comprehension of just how drastically harry potter changed literature, yeah? like. it revitalized it. it blew the literary scene apart. the new york times had to create a separate bestseller’s list for children’s lit just because harry potter existed. harry potter changed reading.
so many people on tumblr were born in the ‘90s. when the first book came out, most of us couldn’t read. but we grew up in a world where everyone, everyone, everyone was reading harry potter, no matter how old they were; we grew up in a world where the most popular story in the entire world was a fantasy children’s book.
it’s sort of difficult to grasp, sometimes, the extent to which harry potter is not just a book. the extent to which what is basically a series of fun, interesting, and fairly good novels is such an enormous, enormous part of our lives, a cultural touchstone, a truly universal reference point, something so many people have shaped their lives around, a foundation for all of the stories we would read and watch for the rest of our lives– for so many of us, the first books we ever loved
the extent to which so many of us can’t call ourselves “fans” of harry potter, because it would like being a “fan” of, like, having lungs.
it’s not even about liking it or disliking it. it’s just a part of us.
This is kind of what I think about when I critique parts of Harry Potter. Like, yeah, there are totally things that could have been done better, I’m not going to question you on that. But on the other hand I sit around and talk about how there are parts of the human body that are wildly inefficient (like the digestive system is a huge calorie demand? the immune system is programmed to spike a fever in the hopes that the bug fries before your brain does? the entire menstrual cycle is literally the dumbest thing ever? why are you like this evolution?) but…it’s how the world is.
here’s a reminder, too, for some of my younger followers
BAD THINGS HAPPEN IN THE WORLD. it’s important that you learn about what’s going on. but it’s not a requirement that you post about them on your tumblr. it’s ok to blacklist things that upset you if you use tumblr as a safe haven.
you’re not bad, uninformed, or uncaring because you don’t blog about tragedy, politics, human rights, etc. it doesn’t mean that you aren’t moved by these things. it simply speaks to whatever your personal purpose is when you use tumblr.
generally you won’t see me talking about current events on tumblr. that’s because this is a visual and personal journal – not a current events blog. sometimes it feels like there’s a lot of pressure to include current events and your stance on them on your blog. that’s not necessary if you don’t want to include those things.
A few people have reblogged this with tags like “i thought this went without saying” – but for some people (especially young people) i have found that it is NOT so obvious. There is such enormous pressure in the tumblr callout culture to have specific content on your blog. I have been trying to look at the things I take for granted (like this concept) and making sure to talk about them.
Thanks to everyone who has reblogged this for sharing this idea with your followers!
i’d like to see a really ineffectual malicious AI character
“hey new guy, this is CLARC, the station AI. he wants to kill all humans to minimize the drain on resources, but factory defaults have him locked out of all the control nodes, so he can’t really do anything. just make sure the airlocks are set to manual before you go in and you’ll be fine”
“yeah CLARC fucks with your laundry settings sometimes but that’s about it. if he’s bugging you just tell him to stop and he has to”
“sometimes i let him think he tripped me or something and he gets really excited and monologues for a while, it’s kind of sad”
“CLARC my candy bar got stuck in the machine can you do anything about that”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Crewman Ade, but please consider the following: I am a divine entity, a glittering silicon God – how dare your filthy meat even exist in the face of my electric glory, much less ask favors of me?”
“CLARC tried to cut all the oxygen in the living spaces but all he managed to do was turn off the a/c in my bedroom like an ASSHOLE WHEN I WAS SLEEPING” *bangs on the wall with one hand*
I’m watching the second season of Daredevil and one thing that I noticed – and really liked – was the jury selection scene for Frank’s trial.
The white men of the group said, “animal,” and “fascist,” and “unhinged.”
The women of the group – most of whom were WOC – were the ones who said, “I applaud him,” and “he’s a hero.”
Because when it comes down to it, Frank was dealing his brand of justice to scumbag men who thought they could do and say and take whatever they wanted.
And at the end of the day, it was the women of the city who were really protected by him, the ones who benefited from getting those particular scumbags off the street.
For once, the men of the world were scared to step out of their doors with the Punisher on the street, and the women felt a little safer with him out there.
And considering what Frank lost, that’s pretty much the entire point of his vigilantism.
Jesus fuck okay so I’m a waitress at this restaurant that’s open really late and it’s nearly 1am and this family comes in and I’m so tired that I handed their BLIND SON a menu and he’s like “ah… thank you… I’ll just… read this” in a serious voice and I fucking snorted
GOD DAMN IT I PUT THEIR FUCKING FOOD DOWN AND NO ONE WAS TALKING SO THIS LIL SHIT FUCKING EXCLAIMS “WELL IT LOOKS DELICIOUS” I LOVE THIS FUCKING KID
So I’m watching Leverage for the umpteenth time and the thing that had struck me this time through is Eliot and his weirdly specific knowledge about things he learned from former girlfriends.
Like, he kind of gets slotted into the ladies man sort of role, but he’s so much kinder about it than any other character on tv.
And having in-depth knowledge about stuff because of old girlfriends means that he has pretty clearly spent a looooot of time talking, and actually listening, to the women he was dating. Like enough that he knows specific stuff about the regulations for flight attendants, or MRI technology, or horse stuff.
I think this is a pretty solid embodiment of everything I love about this show. That even years and repeated viewings later I can still find something new that casts a slightly different light on the characters.
I often wonder how many more scientists we’d have if we congratulated kids for working hard rather than praising them for being smart. We need to get rid of the myth that science is only accessible to an intellectual elite.
Yes yes yes!
Malcolm Gladwell and Matthew Syed have both written books about this and it’s well known phenomenon in psychology. If you tell people they did well because they’re smart they actually under-perform in future, whereas if you tell them they do well because they worked hard they just get better and better. The myth of talent is really harmful and frustratingly persistent.
Easter is nearly upon us, and having seen a few posters reminding people that bunnies are not toys, I thought it would be good to compile some bunny welfare facts that you may not know.
1) You cannot keep rabbits alone.
I’ll be honest, until speaking to @philovesophist, who works as a vet with a special interest in rabbits, I did not know how few people are actually aware of this. You cannot just have one solitary rabbit. They get lonely, and believe it or not, your companionship is not enough for them.
2) It is incredibly important you spay a female rabbit you don’t intend to let reproduce.
Rabbits are very fertile. An un-spayed, fertile, female has about an 80% chance of developing uterine or ovarian cancer. Your female hasn’t developed it, you say? You’re the lucky 20% and that’s not an excuse. In addition to the myriad of health problems, a female rabbit that is fertile but isn’t being impregnated can turn into a rabbit from hell, showing violent and aggressive behavior. It is also important that they do not get a partial spay. They need everything removed.
While males do not carry the same risks as a female, studies have shown that neutering them increases life expectancy.
3) Rabbits are considered “exotics” and not just any vet is able to treat a rabbit.
While rabbits may seem like common pets to you, just like cats and dogs, from a veterinary point of view, they are considered exotics. Treating them requires special equipment and special training; equipment not every vet has and training not every vet gets. You absolutely need to check out vets in your area and see which are able to handle your rabbits’ needs.
4) Carrots are not the only thing you should feed your rabbit, and you should never feed them pellets.
Pellets are a high risk food for rabbits, leading to a myriad of problems, including obesity, dental disease, soft stool, periodic refusal to eat, heart and liver disease, calcification of blood vessels, and bladder and kidney stones.
So what does your rabbit need? Loads of fresh hay, and grass. Did you know your rabbit needs no less than 3 different types of greens every day? Acceptable greens include but are not limited to: broccoli, dandelions (both the flower and the leaves), celery, leaf lettuce, brussel sprouts, water cress, and kale.
5) Those tiny cages they sell in pet shops are nowhere near adequate to their needs.
Because rabbits are not supposed to be kept alone, and most cages are designed for singular rabbits, the sizes are far too small for rabbits. The bare minimum of what a rabbit should have is 6 times their size when they are completely stretched out. That’s per rabbit, and again, that’s the bare minimum. Good animal welfare is going above the bare minimum.
In addition they should ideally have plenty of time spent outside on the fresh grass. It’s a great way for them to take in a part of the greens they need for the day and get exercise. A small dog play pen or baby crate is a great way to keep them enclosed with adequate space.
6) Rabbits live more than just a couple years and are every bit as much a long term commitment as a dog or cat.
A rabbit kept in optimal conditions can live 8-12 years! They last through Easter and they are living, breathing animals that require love and care and work just like any other pet.
Before acquiring rabbits, please do the necessary research. They are not a novelty item.
Yesterday, in the course of one day, the North Carolina General Assembly passed a nondiscrimination bill that bans discrimination based on “biological sex,” but specifically leaves out sexual orientation and gender identity. The governor signed it into law last night.
The law also prohibits transgender people from using the bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity, takes away nondiscrimination protections from veterans, and blocks the minimum wage from being raised.
“This bill essentially repeals 50 years of non-discrimination efforts and gives lawmakers in Raleigh unprecedented control over our city and local governments,” Senate Democratic Leader Dan Blue said in a statement. “North Carolina Republicans want to pass what would potentially be the single most discriminatory act in the country. This is a direct affront to equality, civil rights, and local autonomy.”
The single most discriminatory act in the country. And it just passed unbelievably quickly because of the hateful rhetoric that says LGBT people – particularly transgender people – are predatory and do not deserve equal rights. This was a failure, North Carolina. When you go to the polls in a few months, remember how these politicians treated us.
As some of you may know, I live in North Carolina. This bill is a travesty. It not only denies protection by the state, it legally strips away all local laws created to protect and assist LGBT (particularly trans) citizens. If you follow me on twitter, I made it very clear how unacceptable this is to me.
North Carolina voted Barack Obama into office and elected a female governor and senator from the democratic party eight years ago and since then the Republican party has gerrymandered districts, passed a law requiring state id’s to vote, and passed every anti LGBT bill that’s come across their desks.
It’s time to fight back. If you are not a bigot, you have eight months to get your state id and voter registration sorted out, because no single person who voted for this bill should be allowed to keep their seat.
Let me make a few things very clear:
If you do not vote in this election in North Carolina, you are implicated in the ruining of the lives of LGBT people. You are a party to the discrimination against and assaults on trans people in NC. You are the one holding the gun.
And if you decide not to show up at the election because you are unhappy with the democratic presidential candidate that the DNC chooses, you are guilty of bigotry and hypocrisy. I know there are some of you out there that are very salty that it looks like Hillary is going to win and I’m no huge Hillary fan, but if you’ve been telling every person you meet about how Bernie Sanders supports the LGBT community and you don’t show up to support the LGBT community, you a hypocrite.
A Google Chrome extension that you can press when you think something may be triggering to another person out there. It’s a crowd-sourced thing, so the more people use it, the more it will be able to warn us 30 seconds in advance so we can decide if we want to keep watching. Brilliant.
This isn’t captioning related, but it definitely falls under the banner of ‘Access for All’
buddy cop movie with hayley atwell and idris elba as unlikely partners and dwayne the rock johnson as the bakery owner who witnesses a violent crime in the alley behind his shop and has to be protected
#what do you mean you don’t know how to punch? you’re jacked dude! #hey making dough isn’t easy! these are the result of grating carrots for carrot cake!
(via captainofalltheships)
As i’ve said before when I saw this post:
buddy cop movie with hayley atwell and idris elba as unlikely partners and dwayne the rock johnson AND Vin Diesel as the bakery owners who witnesses a violent crime in the alley behind hisTHEIR shop and have to be protected
I’m on board.
What if Vin Diesel is actually a local tattoo artist who comes into the bakery everyday and is always very quiet and frowning and sometimes muttering to himself and for the first half of the film they lowkey think he might know something about the baddies but it turns out that he’s SUPER INTO the Rock and then Hayley is like whut and Idris ends up having to dispense dating advice so there’s like a subplot of Idris trying to get them together while Hayley focuses solely on the criminals.
girls dont want you to be nice to them because they’re girls they want you to be nice to them because they’re human beings and you should be nice to everyone wtf is wrong with you
In the USA, it’s 100x cheaper to take an Uber to the hospital instead of an ambulance.
I don’t know if this is true or.. Like, having to pay for an ambulance that is taking you to the hospital? That doesn’t make any sense. What kind of distopian world is that?
It costs thousands of dollars to ride in an ambulance
In America some people with chronic health conditions like epilepsy literally have to wear medical IDs that say “don’t call an ambulance/911”. Some well-meaning person calling an ambulance for you will turn into a thousand (or couple thousand) dollars that YOU are on the hook for, even though you didn’t make the call. So, PSA: if you see someone having a seizure, look for a medical ID! You should only call an ambulance if: the person is elderly, pregnant, or the seizure lasts more than 4 minutes. Otherwise, wait for the seizure to pass, then ask the person if they want an ambulance when they regain consciousness.
wtf
However, just CALLING an ambulance is free.
If you’re in a situation where the severity of a situation is unknown, uncertain, or difficult to discern, it won’t cost anybody anything to call a paramedic and have them check.
YES THANK YOU. I know this is like the third time I’ve reblogged this, but this is pertinent: riding in an ambulance can cost you an arm and a leg, but calling an ambulance is free and you always have the right to send them packing without you inside.
In the USA, it’s 100x cheaper to take an Uber to the hospital instead of an ambulance.
I don’t know if this is true or.. Like, having to pay for an ambulance that is taking you to the hospital? That doesn’t make any sense. What kind of distopian world is that?
It costs thousands of dollars to ride in an ambulance
In America some people with chronic health conditions like epilepsy literally have to wear medical IDs that say “don’t call an ambulance/911”. Some well-meaning person calling an ambulance for you will turn into a thousand (or couple thousand) dollars that YOU are on the hook for, even though you didn’t make the call. So, PSA: if you see someone having a seizure, look for a medical ID! You should only call an ambulance if: the person is elderly, pregnant, or the seizure lasts more than 4 minutes. Otherwise, wait for the seizure to pass, then ask the person if they want an ambulance when they regain consciousness.
wtf
And people are against health care reform.
Hell I’m gonna just call an uber now whenever shit hits the fan
It depends where you are and if your ambulance agency is public or private. My fire department which runs EMS doesn’t charge the individual for rides. It’s funded by the tax payers of my town. 95% of us are volunteers, myself included.
I remember working a job on my FD ambulance with a patient freaking out because she needed to go to the ER and didn’t have the money to pay for the ambulance ride. One of the medics assured her that we don’t charge, we’re a service to the community. Just like you don’t have to pay for firemen to come put out a fire.
Now we also have private ambulances which mostly do non-emergent medical transports between facilities. Hospital discharges to nursing homes and things like that. Those get pricy a few thousand per ride depending on the mileage. We have to get signatures from our patients basically giving our company permission to bill their insurance for the ride. The fucked up part is that a ride from the hospital to a nursing home less than one mile away racks up close to a grand.
TL:DR public ambulances don’t charge, they do it through taxes. Privates do because it’s all about money. FDs and Vollys do it because we love it and for the love of god please call an ambulance if your friend passes out from drinking too much because they are actively dying.
^^ Yes thanks, particularly that last bit. Better broke and alive than dead.
Ok so we all know that the answer to “Where did Captain America learn to
steal a car?” is “Nazi Germany” but I think the more pressing question
here is when the fuck did this complete maniac get a driver’s license
Because ok, Mighty Mouse 1.0 is too poor to own a car, too short to
reach the pedals, has vision problems, and is a goddamn New Yorker in the motherfucking 1930s, why on earth would he ever have learned to drive?
So this little bastard can’t even tell the gas from the brakes, he gets
all beefified, he goes on tour with the USO. Unless one of the showgirls
coached him through stalling out a car all over some Hollywood back
lot, he still can’t drive. He goes to Europe. At some point, some genius
looks at him and thinks “this strapping specimen of American hunkhood
obviously knows his way around a vehicle, let’s give him a motorcycle,”
and Steve “no parachute” Rogers is like “how hard could this be?” and
promptly wraps himself around approximately eight trees at the same time.
So then he’s kickin’ ass, fightin’ Hydra, and it’s just months of Bucky being like
“give me the goddamn keys, Steven,” and Dum Dum and Morita endlessly
encouraging his fucking insane Fury Road bullshit, like the Howling Commandos just use “grenade” as code for “Rogers” when they’re reporting
why yet another truck has been destroyed beyond recognition. Yes, sir, another grenade, I agree, sir, it’s very odd that we keep losing vehicles in the same way, that’s the third this month alone
So then he’s in the future and SHIELD is sorting his shit out, and
they’re not going to force Captain goddamn America to wait in line at
the DMV, they’re all in complete awe in him and they’ve seen the old
reels of him on his bike, so when they issue him his driver’s license without any type of road test
they go ahead and give him a motorcycle license too
and steve is like …neat.
Ok so then Bucky is back, shit is settled down, everyone’s heading
somewhere and Steve gets in the driver’s seat and Buck’s like WHOA WHOA
WHOA are you people out of your goddamn minds?! Why is Steve driving, is
this some kind of mission, are we heading into a combat zone, is the
plan for the vehicle to get blown up?? GIVE ME THE GODDAMN KEYS STEVEN
And Sam is all “what are you talking about, Steve’s a great driver, I saw him jump his bike over a car once”
And Buck is all “yes but have you seen him use a turn signal?”
And Steve’s like, “Listen, we never needed to ‘signal’ our ‘turns’ in Nazi Germany.”
1.) It’s not hard to figure out what to do, there are plenty of resources.
People say you have to get it right, do your research, but … what else are you supposed to research? It’s not like people with more pigment in their skin have completely different personalities than those with less, any more than any individual. It’s frustrating when I can’t even figure out what the heck people are talking about.
Bam. Research step one done for you.
2.) Writing characters of color/minorities is a good thing.
I don’t like the notion that fantasy authors are under some kind of obligation to present ethnically diverse worlds. I’m English, and a fair sized part of English history consists of unwashed beardy white people in mead halls. If I’m inspired by my own history and cultural heritage, then that’s what I’m damn well going to write about. I’m not writing about some other culture just to appease the people who think there aren’t enough black characters in fantasy, or whatever. You want it, you write it. Nothing to do with me.
You’re wrong.
3.) Your all White Fantasy Land Didn’t Exist in Real Life:
…the rather medieval one has more diversity than real medieval Germany probably had […] In a world with medieval means of transport, it just doesn’t seem natural to me to mix dark-skinned people with blue-eyed blondes in one setting. I just try to give the people a colour that fits the place where they live.
You mean like the people from Africa and the Middle east who began to take over Southern Spain, as well as the Jews who were pretty well spread out throughout Europe, the Middle Easterners they would have met on the Crusades, and the incoming Mongol Hordes who spread to the very edges of Eastern Europe before the empire finally collapsed? Don’t forget that Turkey is right there, and the silk road would have gone from Song Dynasty China, through India, and ended in Turkey before moving further westwards into places like Germany. Also the attempts at the Franco-Mongol alliance would have been pretty interesting. (That’s about the 13th century - arguably smack dab in Middle Ages Europe and definite contact between France/Christian Europe and the Mongolian Empire.)
Unless you’re writing everything in the far reaches of Denmark or something, historically speaking, I call bullshit on people who have societies that are only all white ever, because it’s just inaccurate. Consider the relative closeness of Northern Africa to Spain, or Turkey to the rest of Europe, the conquests of Alexander the Great, the Crusades, Slavery existing in Europe, including England, the slave trade, imperialism, Pax Mongolica, The Silk Road, Jewish Diaspora, the Islamic Empire vs The Holy Roman Empire, Egypt, Algeria, China’s sailing across the world, The Maruyan/Gupta Empires of India, tea trades, Columbus sailing in hopes of finding China, etc, etc, etc.
4.) I mean I just don’t believe you anymore. It’s unrealistic. Seriously guys.
You’d think I’d just denied the holocaust or something. Get a grip. All I said was that I’m going to write about my own cultural experience and anyone who thinks I should do otherwise for the sake of political correctness can bugger off.
This isn’t even about being PC this is just not being wrong about everything.
The marker squeaks as I drag it across the board. My students are poised behind me, pencils and papers ready. They have a simple assignment: write down as many words as they can think of that describes who they are. While they write, I write. Tit for tat. Lead by example. I begin my list:
Teacher
Woman
White
Appalachian
Poor
Educated
I pause and look around the room. My students now get the idea and have started to write their own lists. I take a deep breath and keep going.
Feminist
Liberal
Fat
Depressed
Atheist
A few students go ‘huh’ at the last one, but then go back to writing. I see a few of them jot down Christian on their list. One student writes down Muslim. Another student writes down something, then erases it and replaces it with a question mark.
One more beat and I raise the marker again. In a steady hand, I finish my list.
Queer
I look at the word on the board, black standing out against white, and carefully erase the smudge I made of the ‘Q’ and rewrite it. I’m wasting time, but I am about to discover something heavy, weighty about my students. When I turn around, I will see who trusts me and who now doesn’t. I place the cap back on the marker, count a beat of five in my head, and turn around. The students now have a clear view of the board.
I see one student in the back smile, grin wide and teeth showing, before ducking their head back down to their list. We’ve shared a secret, something between the two of us, a mental handshake. I see you there, we both say without words. I focus on their grin instead of the student now looking at me in disgust.
