Blog de Lokopo.

Extasis

(via

extasisfilosofico

El día se suicida arrojándose al mar…

¿Qué es la poesía? (Víctor Vich)

     0000 d 00 h  00 m  00 s

“Thats weird…” I checked my wrist, the clock had just hit the 30 second mark but I looked around and there was no one there. I was a worrisome guy overall but I felt justified, I mean today was the day I was meeting my soul mate. Not that I expected my dream girl to be in the storage closet at work but still I was nervous. 

Walking out with a box the boss had requested I walked back to my cash register setting it on the shelf. My wrist hit the 20 second mark

19 seconds

18 seconds

Where was she? I could not help but get worried that an error would pop up or that she was gone and my timer would run out with no response. I panicked, I’d change my own fate if I had to. Running out of time I hurried through the back door. There was a park outside and maybe I was supposed to be there to find my soul mate. 

10 seconds

9 seconds

A faint ding of the doorbell hit my ear. Wait was that it?? She was here! I turned around running back to the counter. “Don’t worry I’m just in the back!”

I ran out looking at my wrist as it hit zero. Out of breath “Hi I’m Matt!” Sticking out my hand for a handshake it was met by a firm hand. Meeting my soulmate’s eyes for the first time they spoke. 

 Suddenly a dark shape runs past my window and a boy jumps on the bus. He has that same frantic look in his eyes. I breathe out with relief.  ”Yeah get on, we’re running late,” the driver says, taking his ticket. The boy looks around, carefully stepping towards the seats. He’s tall and handsome, holding a sketchbook. I smile slightly; my friend hates art.  4 seconds  He spots her.  3 seconds  His eyes widen as he walks closer, as if being pulled by an invisible rope.  2 seconds  My friend stands up too, that same rope tying her to him.  1 second -  ”I was worried the bus would leave. No way could I miss meeting my soul mate!” he jokes, though he looks just as nervous as she. They smile at each other as they both sit down together. I can’t hear what they’re talking about.

 I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. Suddenly I’m crying. Hot tears dropping down my cheeks.

 I look at my wrist, scratching at it. Trying to get rid of it. 

 The numbers have never changed.

PRIMAVERA

Desentierras la soñolienta primavera, la prendes en tu pelo y ríes: roción de risa frisando el aire mientras el mar entibia el sol verde.

Tu mano en la mía, tu piedra lanzada al cielo, sombras densas de pétalos arriba: estallan botones en nuestros brazos, en el centro de nuestra visión relumbra la ronda del sol a borbotones de oro.

Somos el lago, los árboles, el sol cernido por las ramas en la hierba, bailando en la azotea de tu pelo.

Una puerta de par en par en el viento, una mano nos saluda, y a las sombras verdes; Los caminos por la piel tersa de la tierra son frescos y tus brazos lucen en el agua.

Tras nuestras pestañas, bajo el sol, la fruta y el mar maduran lento.

The fact that Disney churns out film after film after film after film about white people with a maximum of one film per ethnicity that showcases a group other than white people is whitewashing.

The fact that the story of “Pocahontas” (not her real name) has been substantially altered so that some of the white people in that story don’t look like such villains, with John Smith younger and Pocahontas significantly older, as well as recounting a popular myth of her saving John Smith from near-execution (a story John Smith made up to make himself look brave, the real Pocahontas told him to stop telling and hated him for using her to make himself look good, and he started to spread like wildfire after she died because she could no longer object) is whitewashing.

The fact that the characters on “How I Met Your Mother” are all white, and they supposedly live in New York City, but apparently associate exclusively with other white people (with the exception of Wayne Brady, who occasionally visits from out of town, and a recurring taxi driver) is whitewashing.

The fact that the Doctor has now been a white man a full twelve times in a row is whitewashing even though the character’s always been white, because the idea that there’s a character whose entire appearance can change in a matter of seconds, yet ends up white twelve times in a row by pure random chance, implies that white is a neutral default and other races are a deviation from that norm. 

The fact that people get really angry at the suggestion that characters like Newt Scamander or Hermione Granger could be black because the books never explicitly say “they are black” is whitewashing.

Because that’s the thing. People often assume that when someone’s race isn’t explicitly specified, they’re white. People insist that Katniss Everdeen must be white because it is possible for them to rationalize that idea in their head. People think of white as “raceless” and every other color or ethnicity as “raced,” and that’s what we call “eurocentrism.” 

And that’s the thing about whitewashing. It’s this idea that a “person” is white, and a “person of color” is black or asian or arab or latin@ or whatever they might be.

It’s why people call John Stewart the “Black Green Lantern” but just call Hal Jordan the “Green Lantern.” It’s why Miles Morales is called “Black Spider-man” but Peter Parker is just “Spider-man.” If you want to throw gender into the mix, it’s why Jennifer Walters is the “She-Hulk” but Bruce Banner isn’t the “He-Hulk.”

People think “character” is white and “character + black” is black. There is no default race. Community did a whole episode about how a truly raceless character would look something like this monstrosity:

[Image: A screen cap from Community of two men escorting a human figure dressed to look completely raceless.]

But there’s the tricky part: Once you stop thinking of white characters as “character” and start thinking of them as “character + white,” it becomes really overwhelming how many characters are white. 

I mean, I know there’s a kerfuffle over Disney Princesses right now, so let’s look at the list of official Disney Princesses, shall we? That is, let’s look at the list and include everyone’s race, not just the princesses of color:

Snow White + White

Cinderella + White

Aurora + White

Ariel + White

Belle + White

Jasmine + Arab

Pocahontas + Native American

Mulan + Asian

Tiana + Black

Rapunzel + White

Merida + White Soon to be added:

Anna + White

Elsa + White

4 of those 13 women are women of color. All four of those women of color are different races than one another. At the moment, the number of white princesses is seven, but it’s about to go up to nine. All nine of those princesses are the same race as one another, despite a few of them being different nationalities, although most of them hail from Western Europe.

And a lot of people are saying “but they’re just accurately portraying the parts of the world those stories are set in!” First of all, the presence of a person of color has never been implausible in any part of the world, in any period of human history. Hell, a bunch of these movies were set after Shakespeare had born, lived, and died, but he still managed to write a play set centuries earlier featuring a black male lead in Italy. 

Second, and most importantly, it’s not like they are being assigned a setting at random and have to accommodate it in their character designs. The people at Disney choose to set film after film after film in France and Germany and Denmark.

It’s not that those areas produce more or better fairy tales and folk tales than any of the other continents, it’s that the stories that come from those areas are the ones Disney considers universal.

In the eyes of Disney, there’s a Princess for Black little girls to look up to, a Princess for Native little girls to look up to, a Princess for Arab little girls to look up to, a Princess for Asian little girls to look up to, and nine princesses for all little girls to look up to. It’s no coincidence that in almost all promotional art featuring the “Princess Lineup,” Jasmine, Tiana, Mulan, and Pocahontas are all standing in the back, usually obscured by other white Princesses’ dresses, while the blonde lady brigade stands in the front.