So I’ve been overwhelmed by the black panther comicon appearance and I’ve been dwelling on how revolutionary the black panther movie is going to be, what it’s going to mean to countless people when this movie comes out and how long we still have to go, So I decided to put this short photoset together to illustrate exactly how big of a deal it is and how it is bigger than one person.
it’s so bittersweet because when I was younger (especially growing up where I did, a black kid in Finland) I really wished I had more access to imagery and media that reflected who I was because it would have made my life radically different for the better and I wouldn’t be at 26 (STILL) doing damage control but on the flipside, I’m so in awe of all of the beautiful talent in 2016 that younger black kids are able to see and be inspired by.
I think I was like 4 years old when I conciously picked up race and color via watching Disney’s “Aladdin” and I noticed how Jafar, the evil royal guards etc the villains were more ethnic looking or a shade darker than the “good” characters.
it’s insidious because you’re seeing something but at age 4, you don’t have the comprehension skill or knowledge to break it down and see it for what it is (Colorism, Societal bias against black people which is rooted in centuries of white supremacist doctrine, society associates things that are dark/darker colors with evil, danger, ugliness, dirt etc) and reject it.
so you pick it up and see it on a surface level and you think to yourself “well darker must mean ugly, criminal and less human”…then what happens when you look at yourself in the mirror and find out that you are black?
and guess what? if a 4 year old black kid can pick that up and internalize that about him/her/themselves….then a white kid can sponge up the same language and imagery that dehumanizes black people too (subconciously/conciously)…what happens when when these people grow up? become teachers, doctors, law enforcement etc? what kind of impact is that going to have?
I’m going off on a tangent and that’s just one personal example but society does that on a global grand scale and it is largely unchecked.
but honestly though,look at the photoset and think about how many talented people out there that we love and respect….who would NOT have achieved the things they did if it wasn’t for another person before them inspiring them to reach their goals and acting as trail blazers when it seemed as though it was impossible….then think about the flipside and how many people, with all the potential in the world, never lived to become great because they were met with more images dehumanizing them than ones uplifting them…this is why the fight for HONEST representation is important and it continues.
Remember when Disney was all like ‘fuck how races work and homogeneous casts and couples’?
Black and white couple produce fillipino-american child. White dude is the valet. White step mother, one white step sister, one black step sister. Just a jumble, and it ought to happen again.
First multi-racial cast performing Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella.
Whitney Houston was producing Rodger and Hammerstein’s “Cinderella” and was to star in it until she decided that Brandy Norwood would make a better Cinderella. Brandy would not do it unless her idol Whitney took the Fairy Godmother role.
Brandy Norwood became the first African-American to play Cinderella. This version broke viewer-ship records when it debuted, and it holds the record for the bestselling video for a made for TV movie.
So fuck any noise where people say audience don’t want to see a mixed race couple, or more people of color. This was a success from television. I still remember Brandy singing Impossible.
That ought to happen again. Mixed race live action cast where the relationships don’t made genetic or racial sense.
Chalk these two up as something the studio would love to reproduce and bring back into rotation. #typehunter #typehunting #badgehunting #vintageadvertising #vintagecoffee
[Woman: *kisses raven’s beak* Even though you are naughty, I still love you, aye.]
#goals
Stop everyone! These are the Knaresborough Castle ravens, and this ‘naughty’ raven is probably Izzie: the only bird in the UK to have been given an ASBO (a criminal conviction for anti-social behaviour).
Izzie pretends to get her head stuck in trash, so that when people get up to help her she can fly off and steal their sandwiches. She can mimic human speech, but does not do it often and when she does speak it’s usually rude. When we met the lady in chain mail in July 2013, she told us that Izzie had once flown up to a tourist and said “who the **** are you looking at?!”. The tourist was very offended and assumed it was the chain mail lady who had spoken. The birds are not on chains for their own protection, but for their bad behaviour. They are literally on the naughty step.
I went to Knaresborough on a day the ravens weren’t there, and I was disappointed. I asked the castle attendant when they would be back, and he said he didn’t know. The Raven Lady isn’t associated with the castle. She’s just someone with pet ravens who comes and goes when she pleases and likes to wear chain mail. Life goals or wife goals?
Thank you for adding this, I was going to reblog it again with some info tonight and you beat me to it! Yes this one was Isobella! She also steals cameras from people, she pretends to have her foot stuck in an old water bottle and then goes and nicks stuff from the people who try to help her omfg
A liar…a scammer…. I love robbery AND fraud
*dies laughing* A con-man bird. AND EVERYONE KNOWS HER.
THE RAVEN HAS AN ASBO I’M DYING
Of COURSE a raven is the first bird to ever get an ASBO. It honestly couldn’t have happened any other way.
@ksonney, someone to visit if/when you travel to the UK
my gf is volunteering as a k-3 counselor at a day camp for trans/nb/gnc youth & their families, and she’s been telling me all of these absurdly sweet stories abt the babies and i cannot handle them omg
imagine how much support and love these little babies must have?????
TINY BB TRANS COMMUNITY PLS
THE PUREST
this is fucking adorable!!!!
oh god gnc/trans/nb kids are so important and so are books and resources where they can see themselves represented!!!
I actually have a theory about this! Ok, so I’m totally computer illiterate, but I’ve seen this running joke that all us trans girls are “lesbians who are good at web design.” And I think its because since trans lesbians are seen by society as het dudes before we come out, we don’t have that sort of moment of being forced into the lgbt category before discovering or revealing our identity. So since we “pass,” more or less, we try our best to keep passing for convenience sake while still in the closet. And tech stuff is seen as an incredibly male thing in our society; its coded masculine as strongly as being a mechanic or construction worker. But unlike those other jobs, people in tech fields don’t have to perform masculinity on a daily basis, or even interact with masculine dudes frequently. Basically its a way of broadcasting maleness without having to perform masculinity. So trans women end up gravitating toward STEM fields because they offer this weird semi-safe space of social isolation and assumed normality.
It’s totally similar why so many trans girls play video, board, and tabletop games. It’s a passing performance at first. And we often gravitate towards difficult games (dark souls trans girls) or indie games. They have fairly limited appeal, and rather small communities around them. This means it doesn’t require much interaction with the community at large, while providing a safe form of saying “hey I’m a guy look at me doing guy things” before coming out.
Tabletop, board, and card games are similar, because they can be played within a tiny community. You can know three other people who play them, and never really have to leave that community. Role-playing games in particular, allow for you to be open with yourself without other people knowing. I’m named after my own d&d character, for example, because I played a character named lydia and liked what I felt like when people referred to me as my character.
All of this commentary is spot on. I learned about computers because my parents and friends approved of it; I was into candle and soap making before that. I played computer games because sometimes they allowed me to play the game as a girl and I felt good about myself for once. It all has to do with passing as a man, rather than getting to be the woman you are.
