Ashes to ashes, funk to funky

Look at these. It’s so beautiful and well done

it is responsible, and the mark of a good audience, to critique problematic elements in the media we consume. For example, I love gothic lit - but a lot of it is incredibly sexist and racist. I can acknowledge that these elements are a problem and objectionable while still enjoying the piece for a multitude of other reasons. I can also say to myself “if I ever want to write my own gothic lit, here are some elements I should avoid.” Or, if I do want to tackle the issues of racism and sexism in my future gothic lit, then I can say “I will avoid writing in a way which implicitly or explicitly condones racism or sexism, while still emulating the praiseworthy elements of gothic lit.”

In essence, the fundamentals of intersectional media critique is this:  “these elements of [x media] are problematic and we should rethink them in future media, both as audiences and as creators.” By rethinking these elements, I don’t mean utterly doing away with them, but rethinking how we approach them and how we read them.

We enter purity culture when our statement moves from “these elements of [x media] are problematic and we should rethink them in future media, both as audiences and as creators,” and becomes “these elements of [x media] are problematic and therefore anyone who consumes or creates [x media] is condoning everything about [x media].” The implication here is that, if one wants to be a good person, one should avoid [x media], because to do otherwise is to either implicitly or explicitly condone everything in [x media]. This type of attitude towards media is very common in conservative religious circles.

It moves fully into censorship when the statement moves from  “these elements of [x media] are problematic and therefore anyone who consumes or creates [x media] is condoning everything about [x media]” and becomes “these elements of [x media] are problematic and therefore nobody can consume or create [x media] for any reason.” Those who break this rule are seen as evil and shunned. This type of attitude toward media is very common in fundamentalist circles.

A culture of censorship is the natural outcome of purity culture, because purity culture by its very nature seeks purity until even the whisper of objectionable content, in any context, is suppressed.

Many popular posts on Tumblr claim that AIDS activists in the 1980s and 1990s regularly deliberately died in the streets as part of “die-in” protests. But this just isn’t true.

Here’s the definition of “die-in” from ACT UP (AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power) New York’s direct action manual, “Time to Become an AIDS Activist,” c. 1991:

A die-in is when protesters lie down on the ground to represent the thousands who have died or are being killed by the policies and neglect of the government or your target. Often people chant (“How many more have to die,” “We die, they do nothing,” etc.). Sometimes protesters carry cardboard tombstones with names or slogans, creating an instant AIDS cemetery, and others times the “dead” bodies are outlined in chalk with massages written in.

I’ve read several books and countless articles and interviews about AIDS activism, talked to ACT UP alumni, and participated in ACT UP die-ins. ACT UP is known for its boldness in bringing death from AIDS into the public sphere — from David Wojnarowicz’s jacket proclaiming “IF I DIE OF AIDS – FORGET BURIAL – JUST DROP MY BODY ON THE STEPS OF THE FDA” to the political funerals in which members marched their friends’ bodies through the streets. But I’ve never heard of anyone dying at a die-in.

Die-ins didn’t originate with AIDS activism — they were used at least as far back as the 1970s and are still used today, by activists fighting anti-black police brutality, gun violence, and more. But the concept is the same. Protesters lie down to represent dead bodies. But they don’t die.

It should be obvious after just a moment’s thought that people with AIDS did not (and do not) know exactly when they were going to die and therefore could not (and cannot) synchronize their deaths en masse. These posts never use the word “suicide,” but that is what it would have to be — not a mass death from disease, but a mass suicide. This just doesn’t make sense in a movement marked by fierce struggle for life.

So many of us don’t give it that moment’s thought because even after all these years, we lack the empathy to truly think of people with AIDS not as romantic political symbols, but as full complex human beings. Human beings fighting for life, being cared for by loved ones until the end, human beings whose deaths were (and are) personal as well as political.

Imagining their deaths as a planned political statement allows us to pass the buck on some level, to act as though it was OK. And it encourages us to relegate AIDS and AIDS activism to the past, like a flashback in a movie that doesn’t have to conform to the rules of reality.

But AIDS is not history. There is still no cure, no vaccine, and treatment is inaccessible for millions of people with HIV. A million people died from AIDS globally in 2016. Major HIV news goes unpublicized, and crucial prevention methods are price-gouged for pharmaceutical profit. Rampant HIV stigma adds fuel to the epidemic.

AIDS activism isn’t history either. ACT UP NY still meets every Monday. You can fight AIDS just by getting informed and starting a conversation about HIV in your community.

Source

Video of Tama

^Nitama majestic, and below with Yontama

Yontama.

This is SUNtamama below:

Source: https://mainichi.jp/graphs/20161017/hrc/00m/040/003000g/1

Having fun with my press copy of Mordenkainen’s Tome of Good Boys.