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bossymarmalade) wrote2010-06-30 08:15 am
bossymarmalade) wrote2010-06-30 08:15 am
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but we must always be polite about it
So The Last Airbender is opening this weekend. You already know through racebending.com how racist the damn thing is; if you read jedifreac's review you'll also see how misogynistic it is as a bonus. Possibly you've read M. Night Shyamalan's contempt for the protest.
Now let me tell you a story (one that may be triggering for racism).
After my weekend trip to the Scottish Heritage festival, we stopped to get fish & chips for lunch.glockgal and 21freckles went back to the car while I waited for my order, seated next to a young black man who'd just come in on his lunch break -- obviously, because he was wearing a TD Bank pin on his shirt. So, y'know, nicely dressed and polite and everything.
I can tell a lot of you are wincing already. Just hang on.
This child comes in with his white grandparents; kid looks biracial to me. Eventually his white mom finishes her smoke outside and comes in. The kid runs over to her and in this loud, piercing voice, goes, "Look at the scary man!" and points at the bank guy next to me. "Shhh," says the mom, but the kid repeats, louder, "LOOK AT THE SCARY MAN!"
"That's not nice," the mom says. At this point I'm hoping to hell that somehow my body has acted as a sound barrier, because what the fuck -- this poor bank teller comes in for some lunch, and has to hear this bullshit. Coast Salish/BC as a rule doesn't have a lot of black folk (we ran them out back in the day of the Pullman trains) but New Westminster, where we were, has a pretty good number of (mostly) Somalian newer residents.
So, this kid, with his brown skin almost the same shade as mine, his hair in light brown tight ringlets. He looks at this quiet black man next to me and his mind says, "SCARY".
Where did he get this? Say we're generous and assume the mom didn't teach it to him, or the grandparents. Say we assume they're not from New West, they're from somewhere in Metro Vancouver with even *less* black people. Say all that.
Do you think this kid even understands that when he's a grownup, skin maybe darker than in its baby stages, people are going to be calling *him* the "scary man"? Do you think he even recognizes that he's not the hero and never will be? He's already learned from the media and society that the darker you are, the scarier you are; when will he start recognizing his face reflected back only as villain, as joke fodder, as exotic backdrop? When will he realize that other people -- people like me included -- don't see him as white, even in the middle of all his white family?
This is why it matters for kids, for adults, for *anyone* to see themselves in stories. And I don't mean as nameless creatures with no agency, or as a nation of genocidal warmongers. And there are overlaps with the racefail; there's the character Teo, whose father builds him a wheelchair after he becomes disabled, who's also been removed from the movie (to make place for a traitorous Asian character). There's the elders like GranGran, who has been reduced from a competent and vital woman to a faint ancient-wisdom shadow. There's Suki and the strong female Kyoshi Warriors, cut from the movie without even a credit.
We're the scary people on the screen, and we're the scary people in life -- even to a child who's at least partly one of us. Don't ever tell me that it's just a movie. These are the stories that tell people who we are.
Now let me tell you a story (one that may be triggering for racism).
After my weekend trip to the Scottish Heritage festival, we stopped to get fish & chips for lunch.
glockgal and 21freckles went back to the car while I waited for my order, seated next to a young black man who'd just come in on his lunch break -- obviously, because he was wearing a TD Bank pin on his shirt. So, y'know, nicely dressed and polite and everything.I can tell a lot of you are wincing already. Just hang on.
This child comes in with his white grandparents; kid looks biracial to me. Eventually his white mom finishes her smoke outside and comes in. The kid runs over to her and in this loud, piercing voice, goes, "Look at the scary man!" and points at the bank guy next to me. "Shhh," says the mom, but the kid repeats, louder, "LOOK AT THE SCARY MAN!"
"That's not nice," the mom says. At this point I'm hoping to hell that somehow my body has acted as a sound barrier, because what the fuck -- this poor bank teller comes in for some lunch, and has to hear this bullshit. Coast Salish/BC as a rule doesn't have a lot of black folk (we ran them out back in the day of the Pullman trains) but New Westminster, where we were, has a pretty good number of (mostly) Somalian newer residents.
So, this kid, with his brown skin almost the same shade as mine, his hair in light brown tight ringlets. He looks at this quiet black man next to me and his mind says, "SCARY".
Where did he get this? Say we're generous and assume the mom didn't teach it to him, or the grandparents. Say we assume they're not from New West, they're from somewhere in Metro Vancouver with even *less* black people. Say all that.
Do you think this kid even understands that when he's a grownup, skin maybe darker than in its baby stages, people are going to be calling *him* the "scary man"? Do you think he even recognizes that he's not the hero and never will be? He's already learned from the media and society that the darker you are, the scarier you are; when will he start recognizing his face reflected back only as villain, as joke fodder, as exotic backdrop? When will he realize that other people -- people like me included -- don't see him as white, even in the middle of all his white family?
This is why it matters for kids, for adults, for *anyone* to see themselves in stories. And I don't mean as nameless creatures with no agency, or as a nation of genocidal warmongers. And there are overlaps with the racefail; there's the character Teo, whose father builds him a wheelchair after he becomes disabled, who's also been removed from the movie (to make place for a traitorous Asian character). There's the elders like GranGran, who has been reduced from a competent and vital woman to a faint ancient-wisdom shadow. There's Suki and the strong female Kyoshi Warriors, cut from the movie without even a credit.
We're the scary people on the screen, and we're the scary people in life -- even to a child who's at least partly one of us. Don't ever tell me that it's just a movie. These are the stories that tell people who we are.
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It's very similar to how children are convinced bad things happen because of them and the world revolves around them; example, so and so died because they got angry.
But the thing is, it's a sheltered perspective as well as somewhat immature. It's a privilege in itself to think there are enough things different about who you are, that you can never be lumped in with; the bad guys, the people who make other people clutch their purses, the villains, the criminals, etc...
And then something happens, and it will ALWAYS happen and a decision has to be made; wake up to the pain, or doggedly deny because it's easier and hurts less etc - and that's the switch from ignorance to intent.
However, even though I can describe it and to some extent have compassion about it (in theory) - I just have a really short tolerance. And that might be because my siblings did not have the same protection I did as a child. And it might not hurt as much as being a parent, but there's is NOTHING like watching it dawn on a child's face how they're automatically seen as Other, Different, Untrustworthy, A Criminal In The Making and Not Worth It.
Everytime someone says 'You're just looking to be offended' - I know they have no idea I'm standing between a blow and my sibs. They can't see the abuse in the system. So I write them off.
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Meanwhile as an animation fan - I just keep wanting to swat him one for confusing animation, anime - the sequential art style, and A:TLAB.
Racially ambiguous my arse. So all those blue and green eyed Bollywood actresses are racially ambiguous??? Is Mystique of X-men racially ambiguous because she's blue???
I don't. think. so.