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1. make a syllabus for yourself - books, media, places, recipes

2. complete 40% of it

Oh I'm sick. So he and Beethoven were friends, fell out, and Beethoven gave the piece he was gonna gift to him to another guy... Who NEVER played it, unlike Bridgetower, but whose NAME is on it. WOW!!!! They need to rename that damn sonata. That sucks!! How did he play it, make it better, and then it doesn't have his name 😭 Beethoven you salty bastard get in here, you know you made that for Bridgetower!!

It feels dysphoria inducing, not super strongly but definitely and clearly.

I was assigned male at birth. I grew up a truly genderless child.

I only started performing femininity when I subconsciously understood that my masculinity was always seen as equal to being a man which I never wanted.

I became an effeminate teenager, while ridiculously dysphoric because what I truly wanted felt impossible to attain.

I wanted masculinity not manhood. I wanted to be viewed as something other than a man without performing societally normative femininity.

I felt myself tearing apart under the pressure of thinking I had to choose the exhausting and yet dysphoria inducing performative femininity that I never felt truly comfortable with or the dysphoria of being seen as a man and ultimately I began my outward transition journey by trying to conform and perform femininity.

I jumped through all the hoops. I referred to myself as a trans woman. I started taking estrogen and then progesterone and truly all of that has been a beautiful thing for me.

But I only found comfort and peace with myself when I’d reached a level of base and non-performative gendered perception that I started to feel comfortable with slowly but surely embracing my butch identity and masculinity.

I am not a man.

Butch is my gender.

My experience is trans masculine. I found euphoria in embracing my masculinity.

You learn that fatness is "correlated" with the condition but has no proof of being the cause, like how being poor is "correlated" with ill health because of oppression and lack of healthcare. The number on your bank account doesnt actually cause the ill health, it's the oppression and how society treats poor people that is the cause.

You do even more research and learn that turning a fat person into a thin person is as scientifically possible as climbing mount everest without dying, without a sherpa, and without thousands of dollars. And that constant yo-yo dieting and abusing your body into temporary thinness damages your health. Chasing thinness for 80 years is causing the ill health itself.

You learn how fat people endure a wage gap, starvation, medical abuse and medical neglect that leads to death, are refused access to anorexia recovery resources. You realize how fatphobia intersects with all other forms of oppression and that numerous oppressed groups have high numbers of fat people. You learn how fat people's healthy digestive organs are mutilated by doctors to try to force thinness and only result in vitamin deficiencies, alcoholism, suicide, and other unhealthy shit. You read about the fat people whose deaths are blamed on fatness but actually died by police brutality, by a nurse killing them during Hurricane Katrina to not have to deal with the fat patient during evacuations, by a doctor refusing basic tests and telling the fat person to just lose weight until finally a different doctor five years later does that basic test and has to tell the fat person they had cancer all this time and now only have a week left to live. And yes, all of these examples have happened, are documented, and are just a fraction of the deaths caused by fatphobia.

You keep searching and look at study after study that shows the extreme biases that doctors have against fat patients, biases that affect the healthcare they provide the fat person. You see how sports equipment and exercise clothes are intentionally only made for thin bodies. You learn that fat people are ostracized from sports as early as childhood no matter the fat person's skill level.

You keep digging. You find how fatness is extremely tied to genetics. You read about how the sciences actively refuse to study fat bodies even when fat bodies are donated to science. You look at vaccine trials and realize that not a single fat person was included. You google Plan B and learn that the drug doesnt work well for most fat people because only thin people get considered when making drugs safe for society.

After a while, you go directly to the source and look at weight science research. You realize that almost every single study begins with the conclusion that fatness must be "bad" and "unhealthy," which severely affects the validity and credibility of the study, as well as affecting the results. You find out how every weight loss "success" study is extremely flawed, paid for by weight loss corporations, and intentionally ended after a short amount of time and with a miniscule number of participants because that's the only way to make the study a "success." You find tons of studies that actually show how impossible longterm weight loss is, how there's an "ob*sity paradox" where fat people can actually have better health and longer lifespans than thin people, how dieting is severely damaging to the human body. And yet every study still ends with reassurance that this won't stop weight loss attempts. We just need to find successful ways to lose weight. Surely that's possible. Surely that's helpful. Surely thinness must always be healthy and fatness unhealthy. Both fat and thin people get this health condition that we said is caused by fatness? Doesn't matter, fatness is still the cause!

After all, fatphobia doesnt exist, right?

(shout out to the situation sender who's chosen to remain anonymous!)

NOTE: People of color, if you feel that your efforts would be in vain or cause more pain than it's worth, I fully respect not doing it. I've been there, and tbh I usually don't. But white netizens, I expect boots on the ground. Racism festers when no one does anything about it.

So, it's finally happened! You've come face to face with antiblackness in your fandom space. You never thought it could be this bad! Naturally YOU don't condone this behavior, so you take steps to remove yourself from this person.

However! Your friends and other fans are still happily sharing from someone that you KNOW is capable of this. Would they still be comfortable knowing they're yapping amongst racists? And then you wonder- should I tell everyone about them? I mean, surely everyone should know?

Thus we've come to the decision:

The Callout

In my honest opinion, callouts are morally neutral. When used to reveal consistent harmful beliefs, intentions, and behaviors to other people, usually of marginalized identities, I think they're critical. Our safety and humanity matters far more than someone's internet fame. If I can't stop someone from being a racist, I at least don't want their vitriol on my dash, and I ALSO don't want people thinking I agree! Racism shouldn't be tolerated at all, but unfortunately, many an antiblack racist has a popular following and will not be removed. Anything less overt than a slur like the example above is more often than not, not a dealbreaker for many.

On the other hand, when it is maliciously weaponized to drag someone down on nothing but hearsay and rumor, it can be devastating. It has often been used as retaliation against those very same marginalized peoples to shut down discussions of racism and other forms of bigotry. In my opinion, you should not do these sorts of things when you don't have any solid proof or an actual education on what you're talking about. Period.

I say that all to say, be intentional. Use your discernment and some critical thinking.

How Ice Deals With It

Let's say you see something that concerns you. First, you need to pay attention to if other Black fans have noted this person's behavior. Has it been previously noticed, have they seen dogwhistles you've completely missed? Keep in mind as well, antiblackness does not have to come from a white person. Don't let "I'm brown" fool you.

If you're confident: confront the person on the particular issue you've noticed.

‼️‼️‼️ For the maintenance of your mental health, you CANNOT go into this expecting to change someone's mind and behavior. If you do, 9/10 you will face demoralization. You cannot walk into these thinking they care. Most people don't, and will deny the harm of their behavior. It sucks, but it's the truth. Change your perspective. The only goal you need to have is pointing out the harm done, so that this person loses the excuse to be racist out of "ignorance". Once you've spoken up, ball's now in their court.

Confrontation doesn't have to be negative! It can be as simple as "hey, what you said was not okay, here's why, and I hope that you can learn from this to do better for yourself and for your fans." Simple, to the point.

‼️Keep in mind, from Fans of Color: the private confrontation is a sign that we're trying to give you a chance to do right. Everyone's not going to receive that grace, nor do I expect every fan of color to offer it. It might just be up with you and your racism that day. 🤷🏾‍♀️ I would take the chance if offered.‼️

We're going to go two routes here.

1) It works

If it works, then what should come next is 1) a full acknowledgment of the violence and harm, 2) visible steps to ameliorate that harm, and 3) an apology to those harmed.

It doesn't have to be a complex apology (unless the situation itself was that large). But it has to be genuine and the change needs to be seen.

Very often you'll see apologies for antiblackness... To white fans. You cannot apologize for your actions to people who were not harmed by them, because they are not the ones with the right to accept the apology!!!! It's not a real apology. They've just covered for being exposed, is all. Be willing to hold each other accountable!

2) It doesn't work

This might still happen after the "it works", btw! Some people genuinely just want the appearance of progressiveness.

Here's where it gets gritty and you'll experience the most discomfort, I'm just being honest:

They might fucking suck!

They might suck, they might make it a point to share with their followers that you suck, and those same followers might also suck! You know how they sound? Like those people who fought for rapist Brock Turner because "he had a good future and this shouldn't ruin it". Yeah.

Recognize that this backlash you may experience from strangers is not coming just from their need to be entertained, but from a realization that if their fave is antiblack and they agree, then THEY are being antiblack too.

That acute pain you're feeling from this effort- you're now feeling a part of the chronic pain that is being a Black fan! And if you're white, you just temporarily sacrificed your whiteness to defend what was right, and now you are seeing a piece what that whiteness shields you from. Idk how else to put it.

Now what?

Well first, this shouldn't make you go "oh well there's no point in fighting racism bc they're so mean." Why do you want to identify with the people who just acted like that lmao. Antiracism is hard, but the right thing isn't always easy. Stand up and dust yourself off, soldier.

Take the steps to protect yourself. That might be a break from socials to decompress. Block people as necessary, use the tag blocker thing.

Recognize that you are not in the wrong for wanting this harm to be accounted for. If this person didn't want to be seen as a willful racist, they should have chosen to do better. They didn't want to, they chose to triple down on their racism, which they are now aware of doing! They just don't care. And that's not within your control. They wanna be a racist, let them be treated like one!

"Curate your space" as they say, and recognize that antiblackness is going to have you potentially removing folks you thought were cool left and right. You might see some people close to you show their true colors. It's time to make some tough personal decisions. I can't walk you through that. But I don't want to be around people who treat antiblackness with apathy, because birds of a feather... 👀