When Diversity Casting Hurts the Plot, It Hurts Black Actors—and Viewers - "House of the Dragon follows the story of the Targaryen dynasty, a fair skinned, white haired race of incestuous aristocrats whose dragons, superior technology, and fiercely guarded noble bloodlines give them the power to rule the Seven Kingdoms with an iron fist. The history of the Targaryen dynasty, it bears repeating, is fraught with violence, the subjugation of "lesser" people, and an obsession with pure bloodlines that ends up being their undoing. So it was puzzling at best that the showrunners decided to populate the Targaryen family with a racially diverse cast, including Steve Toussaint, the Black British-Caribbean actor, who plays Lord Corlys Velaryon. "The world is very different now than it was 10 years ago when [Game of Thrones] all started," showrunner Ryan Condal told EW. "It's different than 20 years ago when Peter Jackson made The Lord of the Rings. These types of stories need to be more inclusive than they traditionally have been. It was very important for [us] to create a show that was not another bunch of white people on the screen, just to put it very bluntly... portraying the Targaryen dynasty as a rainbow coalition of racially-mixed characters undermines key aspects of the plot, like the severity of their hubris and their long history of despotism, colonization, and subjugation of "lesser people." It's an object lesson in how not to do diversity casting, which has to be done right. If not, it's just as insulting as no diversity at all—perhaps more so. Forced and haphazard casting that changes character nuances and motivations as well as entire plot lines beyond recognition undermines both actor and viewer. Doing diversity casting right means using it to enhance a work of fiction, rather than weaken its entire premise. Failing to do this right reduces Black actors to their skin color, rather than allowing them to inhabit a character that makes sense in its entirety. But all too often, Black actors are cast in established franchises in a lazy way that tokenizes them for their race with no respect or credence paid to the subtext and historical and symbolic dimensions of the story. Take for example the 2021 British TV drama Anne Boleyn, which received tremendous backlash for the purely "diversity"-driven choice to cast a Black actress, Jodie Turner-Smith, in the role of one of Europe's most famous monarchs. As in the case of House of the Dragon, the decision was defended on the merits of "identity-conscious casting."... When you're undermining a piece of history by casting a Black actor, you're making their race an inaccessible part of their character and their acting. After all, how free can a Black actor be when they are slotted into a role that was not intended for them? How much of the historical weight of a story is impacted by this "race-conscious" approach to storytelling, which ends up obfuscating the connotations and impact of race and power? It's unnecessary at best. There exists a host of available stories that showcase Black lives through history and mythology, from Shakespeare's Othello to the story of England's first Black aristocrat, Dido Elizabeth Bell, to the slave rebellion leader Toussaint L'Ouverture. And yet, instead of creating great TV around these incredible stories, we get a lazy and desperate push to haphazardly insert people of color into traditionally European roles while dismissing those who take issue with these diversity casting choices as racist. Haphazard diversity casting ends up objectifying Black actors, exposing them to needless backlash and hostility from confused and frustrated fans and disconnecting their race from their acting and characters. But the clumsiness of bad diversity casting also exposes something dark about the audiences for these prestige TV dramas. In the cast of House of the Dragon, the message is clear: Your average woke, Hollywood liberal can still root for a ruling class portrayed as malignant despots, so long as they aren't all white. It's a key feature of pop-wokeness: making it seem counter-cultural to side with the elite. Shonda Rhimes' hit Netflix show Bridgerton is another famous and recent example that features a diverse, rainbow cast of fawning aristocrats, despite being set in the Georgian period, the height of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. These desperate attempts to foster diversity blur the lines between aspirational fantasy and historical anachronism, which makes it hard to decipher how much of the impact of a story is lost when modern preoccupations with diversity and inclusion collide with unpleasant historical, mythological and symbolic truths. Diversity casting in deeply hierarchical narratives reveals how comfortable we are with hierarchy, aristocracy, and even incestuous Aryan-like racists—so long as it's white servants waiting on Black queens and nobles, and so long as the eugenicist Aryans aren't all white. It's a shame that showrunners aren't challenging these classist assumptions but catering to them with their own racialized decisions, which undermine Black actors and acting as well as viewers. And it's especially dispiriting because diversity that makes sense is not hard to find and can add incredible texture and richness to a story. The previous incarnation of HBO's Game of Thrones was one such example. It managed to stay true to the source material during the earlier seasons while still showcasing stellar portrayals of Black characters who hail from the places in George R. R. Martin's universe where dark-skinned people exist. Fan favorites like the foul mouthed pirate Salador San, played by Black British-Tanzanian actor Lucian Msamati, and the confidante of Queen Daenerys, Missandei, played by British-Dominican Actress Nathalie Emmanuel, were both beloved characters in the original series, and their presence on the show didn't feel forced or out of place. The challenges with diversity casting reflect the systemic problems and glaring lack of ambition and imagination in Hollywood. It's much easier for the highly-profit driven industry to slot token Black actors into already existing franchises that are guaranteed success, and much harder to take risks and tell new stories that feature prominent Black characters and myths and that showcase the full scope of the imagination and talent of people of color."
A woke critique of diversity casting. The author is claiming that black characters must be political. I think many would think this would be even worse
Weird. It's like people didn't watch Game of Thrones since they're pretending Grey Worm, Missandei, Salladhor Saan etc didn't exist. Probably because if they admit that, they'd have to explain why all the "racist" fans were happy with them
Meme - ">make a spinoff show
>about a family whose ethos is purity of bloodline and genes
>half the cast are mulattos anyway
We can't beat these guys can we"
Are there any actual evidence that the Velaryons are white? : HouseOfTheDragon - "Velaryons are Valyrians and House Targaryen felt very comfortable mixing with them and preserving Valyrian blood. We know what Valyrians look like - Toussaint does not look like a Valyrian. Many Velaryons are described with the silver hair and purple eyes of the Valyrians, including Corlys’s children."
"There is evidence that the Velaryons are not black. Daella, who had parents that were half Velaryon, a grandmother who was Velaryon, and was betrothed to Corlys, cried the first time she saw a black man:
Once, in the halls of the Red Keep, Daella had encountered a prince from the Summer Isles in his feathered cloak, and squealed in terror. His black skin had made her take him for a demon.
This pretty much confirms that they aren't black. Why would she cry upon seeing a black man if the Velaryons were?"
"Daella was surrounded by family with Velaryon blood and she had never seen a black man before. Not only that, but Corlys Velaryon was a potential marriage match for her."
'House Of The Dragon' Showrunner Reveals Why The Series Made The Velaryons Black - "a co-creator for the show told “TheGrill,” an interview series from TheWrap, on Tuesday that the decision to add more diversity to the sci-fi and fantasy genre wasn’t intended to appeal to left-wing ideals... “It’s 2022,” he said. “It’s a different era than these shows used to be made in. We have an incredibly diverse audience that’s not only across America, but in multiple countries that speak all sorts of different languages, that represent ... all the colors under the sun. And it was really important to see some of that reflected up on screen... In George R.R. Martin’s book “Fire & Blood,” the Velaryons are described as having white skin, ghostly pale hair and purple eyes."
This is literally left wing ideals, but ok
The GTA series is dead: “Rockstar Games cleaned up its frat-boy culture — and Grand Theft Auto, too. […] Developers are also being cautious not to “punch down” by making jokes about marginalized groups” : KotakuInAction - "Gentlemen, the unthinkable happened: the woke cult killed our beloved Grand Theft Auto series. We knew this would happen, but it’s not any less painful when you have been playing GTA since GTA 3. In addition to that, monetization will surely be as predatory and user-hostile as it can get in line with what we have seen in GTA Online all these years. I used to be excited for GTA and new Rockstar releases. Now I couldn’t care less. Frankly, I have no hopes for GTA 6, and don’t think any GTA fan should get their hopes up. RIP GTA. Goodbye Rockstar."
Belgian Jewish leader asks lawmakers not to repeat 'Nazi acts’ in ritual slaughter ban - "Amid discussions on limiting ritual slaughter of animals in Belgium, a leader of the country’s Jewish community pleaded with lawmakers not to “repeat the Nazis’ acts.” The statement Thursday by Philippe Markiewicz, president of the Consistoire organization of Belgian Jewry that is responsible for providing religious services, was unusual because Jewish community officials rarely draw comparisons between present-day issues and the Nazi occupation, which remains a sensitive subject in Belgium. “The last assault on ritual slaughter was in October 1940 under the Nazi occupation because they knew how important it was for Jews”"
The Nazis were into animal welfare. Therefore animal welfare is anti-Semitic and something only Nazis support. Ditto for being against tobacco
‘Elmo Wants To Be An Upstander To Racism’: Sesame Street’s Racial Justice Curriculum Begins With Infants - "Kendi said if racism isn’t addressed by age 2, kids may be “a lost cause” to racism by 10 or 15 years of age."
I remember when liberals used to be against "religious indoctrination" of children. Turns out what they hated was religion, not indoctrination
Meme - "Social Justice League
Superman: "Alright guys, let's get a move on"
Wonder Woman: ""GUYS"?!"
The Flash: ""Get a move on"?! Barbara can't walk! You kiss your mother with that mouth?!"
Batman: "Hey dickweed, some of us don't have mtohers you privileged twit"
Thomas the Tank Engine: The popular children's show is sadly nostalgic for British imperialism. - "In 2009, academic Shauna Wilton wrote that Thomas carried a “conservative political ideology.” Her report was derided as whimsy-hating “political correctness” by conservative media outlets. But wait: Thomas espouses top-down leadership, is male-dominated, punishes dissent, and is uninterested in the mushy sensitivity of its PBS counterparts. (Thomas and his “friends” often “tease” like this: ” ‘Wake up lazy bones! Do some hard work for a change!”) Its innate conservatism is as obvious as the liberalism of cooperative, solar-panel-building Bob the Builderand his band of hippie hammer-lovers. Given charges that Thomas is anti - Semitic and that Sodor is a fascist paradise, Wilton’s assessment is mild. Obviously, it’s foolish to claim that Thomas is a fascist. He and his friends are clearly imperialists. How did I get here? Having failed to reach that perfect bar of parenting, no television at all until Harvard, the exhausted parent critic sits with a train-obsessed child and the TV. I’m overeducated and understimulated, with shelves full of long-ignored critical-theory books, trained in the reading of “texts” through Marxist, feminist, and postmodern perspectives. It’s no wonder that the dormant critical theorist within me awakens when faced with the coded wonderland of children’s programming... it’s still important to instill basic skepticism in your young media consumer. Otherwise, you face the very real possibility that your toddler, raised in an environment full of labor abuses and pro-toadying propaganda, might one day look at you and earnestly promise to be “very useful”—the show’s highest compliment for an engine"
Leftists keep bitching about how they are underpaid, but they explicitly don't want to be useful and productive
Anarcho Family Man on Twitter - "One of the “sexualities” is “I like an emotional connection before fucking”. They turned practically every woman on earth and many men into marginalized paraphiliacs."
RWBY Production Company Rooster Teeth Contradicts Previous Statements About Inclusion, Tells Customers To Get Lost "If You're Not With Us" - "RWBY production company Rooster Teeth, part of AT&T’s WarnerMedia recently took to Twitter to declare that the company stands for “social justice” and told their customers to get lost if they weren’t with them... “This is your regular reminder that we happily and proudly stand for social justice.” They added, “We have no tolerance for racism, sexism, or harassment of any kind.”... Here, they note they want “to be more inclusive of all people.” However, now they are making it very clear they want nothing to do with inclusion writing, “If you’re not with us – this isn’t an airport, no need to announce your departure.”"
Former Rooster Teeth director exposes culture of harassment and crunch - "Former Rooster Teeth director, producer and content creator Kdin Jenzen has shared a lengthy report into the company's culture, saying that she was often underpaid or not paid at all, that crunch was common practice, and that she was harassed by co-workers"
2020 vs 2022
C2DEs Anon. on Twitter - "NEW: Pride in London have asked the UK Government to declare 2022 as a Year of Queer"
"Pride Day ✅
Pride Week ✅
Pride Month ✅
Pride Year?
Then what? Pride Eternity?? Wokeness is an arms race."
Another example of the "myth" of the slippery slope
Meme - "Family is a terrible way to satisfy our desire for love and care, according to the writer and academic Sophie Lewis. The solution? Abolish it. ~ thread ~"
"I feel so much more loved than you do! *Old woman with wine glass facing 3 generation family*"
I thought it was a conspiracy theory that liberals want to undermine and destroy the family
Abolish the Family review: Red love, for all - New Statesman - "Family is a terrible way to satisfy our desire for love and care, according to the writer and academic Sophie Lewis. The solution? Abolish it... Her new book, Abolish the Family, offers a powerful introduction to the world beyond the nuclear family... Even the happiest families, in the words of the writer Ursula Le Guin, are built upon a “whole substructure of sacrifices, repressions, suppressions, choices made or forgone, chances taken or lost, balancings of greater or lesser evils”. If we abolish the family, we abolish the most fundamental unit of privatisation and scarcity in our society. More care, more love, for all... Family abolition asks us to take seriously the idea that children are everyone’s responsibility – not just that of their parents. This is an idea with a long genealogy, which Lewis traces in the messy histories of the activists who have tried to live according to a more emancipatory family politics. We meet the Russian revolutionary thinker and activist Alexandra Kollontai, who demanded that “society will feed, bring up and educate the child”, and that, “The narrow and exclusive affection of the mother for her own children must expand until it extends to all the children of the great, proletarian family.” This was a red love, a social love, that broke open the narrowly bourgeois love of biological parenthood. In the 1960s, the radical feminist Shulamith Firestone argued that women’s and children’s liberation were inextricably linked, and could only be achieved through “the diffusion of the childbearing and childrearing role to the society as a whole”. The gay liberation movement organised a leafletting campaign at the US Democratic National Convention in 1972, demanding that legal rights parents hold over their children should be dissolved, and “free twenty-four hour child care centres should be established where faggots and lesbians can share the responsibility of child rearing”... children’s liberation – from the patriarchal family, from legal ownership, from economic dependency – was central to their ideas of social transformation... black feminist writers have long recognised the ambiguous place of care within families subject to the historical violence of slavery and racial capitalism... Lewis writes of a 30-year period between 1985 and 2015 when family abolition was largely ignored as a political aim"
We will still be told that it's misinformation to say that the left is anti-family and wants to destroy the family
The year 2015 is significant. Of course, we are still told that legalising gay marriage didn't hurt non-gay families. But it turns out trans mania might not have been the only item on the slippery slope after gay marriage, no matter how much gay activists mock that claim
Covid-19 Is Straining the Concept of the Family. Let’s Break It. - "in March 2019, the leftist publishing house Verso Books launched my book Full Surrogacy Now, a call for “the gestational commune,” which I hoped might contribute to a revival of queer utopianism inspired by the Marxist rallying cry “Abolish the family.” Indeed, for several years now, together with a number of other trans-liberationist Marxists and mothers—notably Michelle O’Brien, Kate Doyle-Griffiths, Madeline Lane-McKinley, and Jules Joanne Gleeson—I have been doing my best to raise the profile again of that old dream “family abolition”"
How to Build a Three-Parent Family - The Atlantic - "Jay is Tavi’s parent just as fully and permanently as Kent and Hausfather—and just as legally too, since three-parent adoption has been recognized by the state of California. (Three-parent adoption has also been recognized by state statute in Maine, Washington State, Rhode Island, and Vermont, according to Colleen Quinn, the director of the Adoption and Surrogacy Law Center at Locke & Quinn.) Family, in his own way... The idea that the default family unit consists of two straight parents and their children is outdated and doesn’t reflect the U.S. today... But formalizing these families through law, as Jay has done, is a relatively new possibility... For Adams, tri-parenting is a way of reclaiming the “diversity and beauty of the queer community.” When it comes to queer rights, the big fight of past decades has been to legalize gay marriage, which has been significant, but has also played into the narrative that the two-parent family is and should be the default structure. “That has taken away some of the power of being able to live radically queer lives without needing to fit into a capitalist, patriarchal structure of a nuclear family”... the increasing visibility and legalization of three-parent arrangements “is one of the signs that our definition of family is opening up,” Cohen, from the University of Maryland, told me."
Ancient Aliens: Mysterious History of Stonehenge (Season 14) | History - YouTube
Ancient Aliens: Carnac Stones Baffle Archaeologists (Season 9) | History - YouTube
Watch Aliens and Ancient Engineers Full Episode - Ancient Aliens | HISTORY - "Might the tools and technology of ancient builders have come from distant galaxies?... an acoustic chamber in Malta enabled interplanetary communication"
3.9 – ALIENS & DEADLY WEAPONS (9.22.11) | ancientalienpedia (Also on S3E9 of Ancient Aliens) - "according to Ancient Astronaut Theorists even stronger evidence exists that Emperor Constantine had a genuine alien encounter. Shortly after the Battle of Mulvian Bridge, he was said to have acquired a powerful new weapon known as Greek fire, it was the most devastating weapon of the time and it was said to have been given to Constantine by angels"
12 Ancient Sites That Blur the Line Between Fact and Fiction (Also on S3E13 of Ancient Aliens) - "Some people believe Delphi was one of the “navels of the world,” a place where civilization began. It also is where the Greek god Apollo is said to have descended from the sky in his flying chariot. “What’s interesting is that the stone masonry in Delphi and Cuzco/Sacsayhuaman is virtually identical,” Tsoukalos said. “And both are considered a ‘navel of the world,’ with deities descending from the sky and imparting knowledge on people. You have the same masonry style on different sides of the world—even the same story about people descending from the sky. So you have to wonder: Were they visited by the same beings? If so, who were they and where did they come from?”"
Ancient Aliens: Da Vinci's Alien Encounter (Season 4) - YouTube
The Bosnian Pyramids - Digging Up Ancient Aliens | Archaeologists and UFO’s | Podcasts on Audible | Audible.co.uk - "Next to a small village in Bosnia there is what some believe is the world's oldest and largest pyramid. Sitting there forgotten for millennials until one man discovered them again. Or did he? Our host Fredrik continues the mission to discover what is genuine, fake, and somewhere in between on the TV-show Ancient Aliens."
Ancient Aliens: Arkaim, the Russian Stonehenge (Season 11) | History - YouTube
Damn anti-white racism! Clearly if you think an ancient culture couldn't have come up with some technology or built some monument themselves, you are racist
The Dustup Around Lin-Manuel Miranda and Disney's ENCANTO
There was quite a good Quora answer on the hypocrisy of "representation" and how Latin America is whiter than Anglo liberals think, but of course it got deleted by Quora
My Midnite Channel on Tumblr - "If you think aunt Pepa is whitewashed ✨ you are racist✨ And need to educate yourself! I’m Latina, I’m Colombian: We Latinos can be white! I’m actually pretty pale and my dad and his whole family is black 🙃 Am I whitewashed? 🥺🥺 I’m not Colombian enough because my skin color doesn’t fit your Latino stereotype? I’m adopted because if my family is black then I should be it too? It’s called genetics, and diversity. And for those who don’t know, we are a very diverse country since during the colonial period we had a lot of races and nationalities sharing in our territory: Africans, Spaniards, Natives. Creating new races like “criollos”, “mestizos” and “mulatos” and that’s what they tried to represent in the movie, by making aunt Pepa with pale skin. So stop trying to teach us how people in our country should look. Educate yourself. You are more racist assuming we all should be brown than accepting that Latinos can look in various ways. And you can’t fight me since I live here in Colombia and I’m Colombian... everyone around the world thinks we are only brown because of stereotypes! When our territory has afrocolombians, mixed, black, white and everything in between. Also the movie is focused on a territory similar to the states of “Caldas” or the “Quindio” where most of the people around there are white because of the weather, so changing it was a good creative decision and we got an equal representation for all skin tones! (In fact there is only 3 white characters in the madrigal family and I think that’s enough and perfect)"
"I'm Colombian and I'm very proud of this movie. Why are people saying that Pepa is whitewashed? Dude, my family's diversity is so big and here that's so normal."
"sorry but the "she should be brown cuz it makes more sense considering her husband and kids are afro-latinos" is the most US American take on race X relatinship ive seen in a while"
"As a white latina everytime people find out I am latina from Mexico. They go"you don't look Mexican" wtf is that suppose to mean. Being Latin is an ethnicity, being Mexican, Colombian is a nationality. People need to educate themselves before they say stupid things like this"
""She's being whitewashed" so does the curly hair, indigenous nose, and eye shape mean nothing to you? Lol. My grandpa's mom was a legit Maya and he was born with blue eyes, so was my grandma (actually, hers were green). White people accept that genetics are complicated."
"my mom is wayuu and brown, i look a lot like pepa, so i feel represented as a light skinned person who isnt white. you guys are fucking insane if you say "its white washing bc they lightened her from the concept art""
Bangladesh: Attacks on Hindu Community Reflect Deadly Identity Crisis - "On Oct. 15, mob violence erupted in the town of Begumganj, Bangladesh, during Durga Puja, the holiest Bengali Hindu festival of the year. The unrest was sparked by online rumors that the Quran had been desecrated when it was allegedly placed at the feet of the Hindu goddess Durga. Recent reports suggest that Muslim hard-liners may have used social media to provoke the violence, which killed two Hindu worshippers. In the wake of the incident, attacks on Hindu sites swept across Bangladesh, with at least 17 temples targeted, homes ransacked, and several Hindus killed in other clashes... Bangladesh’s moderate version of Islam began to shift in the 1980s, in part because of the growing influence of Wahhabism... The country’s largest Islamist political party, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, likely courted these returning expatriates. Against this backdrop, a number of radical Islamist organizations emerged, particularly in the last two decades. Among the most prominent are Ansarullah Bangla Team, Hizb ut-Tahrir, and Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB). These groups have attacked secular intellectuals, terrorized the Hindu community, and launched dramatic terrorist attacks, including in Dhaka, the capital. They have sought to intimidate those who dare to challenge their vision of Islam, including educators, journalists, and even politicians. Although the government has spoken out against Islamist extremism, its willingness and ability to crack down on these organizations has not been sufficient."
There goes another moderate Muslim country
Kat Zhou 💭 on Twitter - "Having lived in Stockholm for nearly 3 years, I am completely unsurprised and wholly disgusted by the swing towards fascism in Sweden. As an Asian-American woman, I have never experienced as much racism in my life until I moved here. This country is xenophobic as hell."
King Amit Malviya I on Twitter - "Europe is incredibly racist tbh. Only it combines insane levels of cultural antagonism and xenophobia with equally abject surrender of public life and minority appeasement. Racist AND weak"
ib on Twitter - "It's really funny, but it's the excesses latter that's led to the sharpness of the former. They (Sweden) could just be normal (Norway) instead."
King Amit Malviya I on Twitter - "There is definitely an understandable backlash but its also true that the abject surrender and appeasement itself is passed off as a mark of cultural superiority which is v racist - ‘this is not India, here we protect hooman rights’"
London Police Report Finds Systemic Racism and Misogyny - Bloomberg - "London’s Metropolitan Police has allowed hundreds of officers accused of racist or misogynist conduct to stay in their posts, according to the findings of an internal investigation commissioned by the Met itself... Black and Asian staff, meanwhile, were overwhelmingly more likely to be the subject of complaints, and more likely to have these complaints upheld — a finding that Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley, appointed last year following his predecessor’s resignation, said showed “patterns of unacceptable discrimination that clearly amount to systemic bias.”
Liberal logic - complaints against the police are valid, so letting officers accused of misconduct stay shows something is wrong. At the same time, Black and (South) Asian officers facing more upheld complaints means there's racism
It’s time to stop bashing white men - "Monty Python legend and film director Terry Gilliam says we have to stop blaming white men for every ill in the world. He’s right. The casual manner in which ‘white man’ has become a term of abuse is deeply worrying. It treats whiteness almost as an original sin. It turns the accident of white skin into a marker for evil, a sign that you’re a morally questionable creature. It’s time to bring this white-man-bashing to an end... #MeToo is allowing women to dodge responsibility for their own failures and bad choices, he says. ‘I want people to take responsibility and not just constantly point a finger at somebody else, saying “You’ve ruined my life”.’ He says he now identifies as a black lesbian. People have taken offence. Of course they have. What else are they going to do with their time? These easily offended nitwits should avoid the Monty Python classic Life of Brian (1979), which doesn’t only mock Christianity (which of course they have no problem with) but also the mad, sectarian left and transgenderism, too... And why is Gilliam joking (yes, it’s only a joke, calm down) about identifying as a black lesbian? Because it’s rough being a white man these days, he says. ‘I’m tired, as a white male, of being blamed for everything that is wrong with the world’... He went on to say that he’s actually pretty exhausted with all forms of racialisation and with the ‘tribalism’ of the new identitarian era... White-bashing is widespread. Observers casually moan about white men and their foul impact on the world in a way they never would about any other group... In popular culture, whiteness is increasingly a marker for squareness. It’s so lame to be white... There are so many problems with this pathologisation of whiteness, this treatment of white men in particular (though white women are increasingly getting it in the neck) as culturally inferior and politically destructive. It racialises public life. It reduces people to their skin colour in precisely the same way anti-black racists did in the past. It erases the colossal social and class differences between white people... It is also pretty immoral. The whiteness obsession utterly erases class. Identitarians claim to be left-wing while in reality achieving something that even the free-market warriors of the Thatcher era failed to bring about: the expulsion of class from public life; the erasure of class as the key social relation; the reduction of working-class men and women to inherently racist and privileged people probably in need of some re-education. ‘Whiteness’ is a patently absurd social category. Who apart from bands of tragic white nationalists and virgins who live on 4chan thinks of himself as white? Our other experiences – class, education, nationality, political belief – are far more important to the vast majority of us. The obsessive assault on white men elicits two responses, both as bad as each other. Switched-on middle-class white people in the cultural elites respond with self-flagellation, constantly checking their privilege and effectively apologising for their accidental crime of having been born white. Some on the hard right and alt-right respond by reclaiming whiteness, by celebrating it, by flirting with white nationalism. Whether it’s the defensive anti-whiteness of posh white people or the assertive white self-love of small groups of right-leaning white youths, both sides accept the reality of whiteness. What we really should be doing is rejecting racialisation entirely."
Terry Gilliam: ‘I’m tired of white men being blamed for everything wrong with the world’ - "“I’m into diversity more than anybody,” he says, “but diversity in the way you think about the world, which means you can hate what I just said. That’s fine! No problem. I mean, you can believe whatever you want to believe, but fundamentalism always ends up being, ‘You have to attack other people who are not like you,’ and that’s what makes me crazy. Life is fantastic, it’s wonderful, it’s so complex. Enjoy it and play with it and have fun. That’s why I didn’t become a missionary. That was my plan. I was quite the little zealot when I was young, but when their God couldn’t take a joke, I thought, ‘This is stupid.’ Who would want to believe in a God that can’t laugh?”"