why are we here? just to buffer?

5. out

4. guilty

3. wanting

2. lacking

On the one hand we would not want to endorse naive anti-scientism which allows the reduction of science to power to lead us to an opposition to scientific inquiry. We can simultaneously hold the scientific method as a human accomplishment which results from certain formulations of power/material economic social structures and recognize that scientific inquiry can give historically contingent insights into our relationship to materiality.

Because pockets are not a natural right.

Because the great majority of women do not want pockets. If they did they would have them.

Because whenever women have had pockets they have not used them.

Because women are required to carry enough things as it is, without the additional burden of pockets.

Because it would make dissension between husband and wife as to whose pockets were to be filled.

Because it would destroy man's chivalry toward woman, if he did not have to carry all her things in his pockets.

Because men are men, and women are women. We must not fly in the face of nature.

Because pockets have been used by men to carry tobacco, pipes, whiskey flasks, chewing gum and compromising letters. We see no reason to suppose that women would use them more wisely. /end transcript]

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 This insulated environment of racial protection builds white expectations for racial comfort while at the same time lowering the ability to tolerate racial stress, leading to what I refer to as White Fragility. White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium.

Read the rest here  !!

White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo

Sadly, I think this is a second example of Maia inadvertently terrifying his staff.

There's an old but still-extant stereotype of senior domestic staff like butlers and housekeepers being more attached to rigid etiquette rules around service than their employers. Its often played for laughs (if you've watched Downton Abbey they do that with the butler Carson a lot).

But Lucy Lethbridge's book Servants which is a really interesting overview of the history of domestic service in the United Kingdom discusses the origins of this and, its not especially funny. Because yeah! Maia could dismiss Esaran, probably with little to no warning, and that would probably seriously damage her ability to get another job. The rigid rules make things predictable. Which is the closest thing to labour protection these people get (Lethrbridge also details how domestic staff were systematically excluded from labour laws as they develop). And that leads service staff to prefer working for rich, old-money families who know all the predictable etiquette. And Maia has started his relationship with his household staff by ambushing them, and disregarding a lot of normal protocol.

Peeling Maia's "everyone hates me" goggles off the situation I think Beshalar is probably terrified.

Beshalar got assigned this job on literally no notice, so he was starting late, he's had this job of protecting the emperor for literally hours, with a partner he's only just met.

Its only been a couple of days since the rest of the line of succession were suddenly died. No one knows exactly what happened yet, or if people are still actively seeking to kill the rest of the royal family. If Maia dies there will be at best a regency and at worst a huge succession crisis and Beshelar will be expected to commit ritual suicide.

Image 1: response by Doll Face (@ Smoke_nd_pearlz) "In 2012 i was diagnosed with a deadly blood disorder known as TTP. I was in the hospital for a month. A white nurse almost killed me because she thought i was drug seeking. I kept telling her my central line in my groin was hurting& she wouldn't give me any morphine just Tylenol.

I went septic later on that night because of the central line. I went into SVT and had to go to cardiac ICU for a week. I was 18. My TTP flared up again in 2016 and i went to the ER. I told the (white) doctor that i had TTP and that i needed to be admitted. He had my records right in front of him. I was just there 4 years earlier, the same hospital diagnosed me.

He told me that i didn't have TTP...i had ITP. He sent me home with steroids and pain meds. I cried and cried and sat at home all weekend until i could get to my hematologist. I called them and they had me come in immediately. Got labs drawn...my hemoglobin and platelets were VERY low. They did a direct admit: I had to get 14 bags of platelets and 3 bags of blood. My hematologist and his NP told me if i would've waited any longer i would've died.

More recently in 2022 i went to a freestanding ED because i thought i had the flu. I was in pain, my blood pressure was elevated, i had a fever. I told the black NP that i have TTP and asked them to do a cbc and ADAMTS13 level if they could. I got pain meds, waited for the (white) doc to come and see me. He told me ny labs were "fine" and that i just had a stomach virus. I didn't believe that so i asked him what my platelet count was. He told me 30k (normal platelet count in non chemo patients are 150k-400k) i almost lost my shit on him.

He went back and further with me for 10 minutes about how i wasn't having a TTP flare up and i told him to call the fucking hospital that I'm usually treated at and find me a bed. He begrudgingly did it. He came back not even 10 minutes later and said that the hospital i usually go to was full (it was around Christmas time) but after the on call hematologist at the level 1 trauma center downtown saw my blood work they wanted me to come in IMMEDIATELY. Hematologist told me if i would've waited any longer i would've been dead before Christmas.

Every time that I've almost died it was either at the hands of a white nurse or doctor. They don't take our pain or complaints seriously! They think we are drug addicts. I literally became a nurse because of this. We need black doctors. That lawsuit is just a bunch of fucking racists who are mad. Fuck them."

Image 2: response by Emmanuel Felton (@ emmanuelfelton), "A peer-reviewed study found Black patients matched with Black doctors were 27% less likely to die in the hospital. A separate study found Black residents live longer in counties with more Black primary care physicians. "Find A Black Doctor" exists because the disparities are real"

Mexico amends its constitution to cut the maximum workweek from 48 to 40 hours by 2030 and gives 13.5 million workers the legal right to ignore their boss’s calls, messages, and emails after their shift ends, in the most significant overhaul of Mexican labor law in a generation.