Mini Lipstick Terrorist

“People of race” 

Fetishization is super dehumanising. Basically it’s when you have a creepy fascination with a category of people who are marginalised for traits you don’t have. It’s like seeing real people as really interesting animals or like abstract concepts or a porn category.

You can fetishize people for their orientation, race, ethnicity, disability, mental illness, religion, for being trans – basically any trait people are marginalised for, other people will use that marginalisation to fetishise them. Often the fetishisation is sexual, sometimes not. (Academics and health professionals, when working with populations they’re not a part of, can and do fetishize their subjects/patients.)

Fetishisation involves:

“othering” a person for having traits you don’t - thinking of yourself as “normal” and them as something other than “normal” (exotification falls under this - “she’s hot because she’s different/exotic!”)

reducing the complex experiences of marginalised individuals into homogenized stereotypes and tidy little stories to be enjoyed by people not marginalised for the same thing

seeing people or groups of people as symbols, abstract ideas, aesthetic accessories, sexual objects, props for your self-aggrandising “saviour” role, etc., instead of as complex human beings with autonomy

creepy fascination that reduces real people to a “hobby” or “interest” for a privileged person

Amanda Palmer, eight months pregnant and exquisitely painted, recreates Damien Hirst’s Verity statue (top) in a performance art piece for the New York Public Library’s children’s book drive. Proud papa-to-be Neil Gaiman (bottom) extends a loving hand to this modern-day nude descending a staircase, after donating a copy of his own charming children’s book, Chu’s Day. 

UKIP are marching (you know, the political party who thinks that gay marriage causes floods)

Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (you know, that group that inspired the movie Pride,) are no longer leading the parade. That honour has gone to - wait for it - Barclays. Yes, as in the bank. Originally LGSM were going to walk with the other unions, and the unions have been shoved back (all the way to Section C.) Instead of walking on their own at the front, LGSM have moved back to be with the unions. Because that was the entire fucking point to begin with.

LGSM were supposed to lead the parade because it’s the 30th anniversary of the miners strike and everything that inspired that movie everyone loved so much. And now they’ve been kicked to the back because the big sponsors want to be front and center.