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like… not only can I not marry the love of my life without losing my health insurance and the $800 or so a month I’m forced to survive on

but I can’t even CALL her “my wife” casually

like literally the US gov’t has people whose job it is to go and interview the family, friends, & neighbors of disabled people to just make sure that they never refer to anyone in their life as “my wife” or “my husband” etc

and if you DO, then SNAP! You’re defrauding the US gov’t of the pittance you can barely survive on and you are no longer entitled to your disability benefits

(some kinds of benefits might remain in diminished form but if you were disabled before age 22 you are fucked COMPLETELY and can’t get them back even if you divorce… the only loophole is if the other person was ALSO deemed disabled before 22, because that fucking makes sense)

and this is just… legal and no one but disabled activists ever talks about this shit

the ruling class:

like… not only can I not marry the love of my life without losing my health insurance and the $800 or so a month I’m forced to survive on

but I can’t even CALL her “my wife” casually

like literally the US gov’t has people whose job it is to go and interview the family, friends, & neighbors of disabled people to just make sure that they never refer to anyone in their life as “my wife” or “my husband” etc

and if you DO, then SNAP! You’re defrauding the US gov’t of the pittance you can barely survive on and you are no longer entitled to your disability benefits

(some kinds of benefits might remain in diminished form but if you were disabled before age 22 you are fucked COMPLETELY and can’t get them back even if you divorce… the only loophole is if the other person was ALSO deemed disabled before 22, because that fucking makes sense)

and this is just… legal and no one but disabled activists ever talks about this shit

Take a facet of crime, and then look at television shows/movies that feature those criminals as protagonists.

White mobs.

White pirates.

White serial killers.

White political corruption

White drug dealers

I mostly want to talk about this as a TV phenomenon, but pick a crime, any crime, and Western media has probably made a movie/TV series/play/etc. with a white person that romanticizes the criminal activity. No matter what, a white person can do whatever terrible crimes and still have a TV/movie fanbase that loves them.

When you see black or brown people committing crimes on screen, you are to see them thugs and criminal masterminds and people to be beat down.

When you see white people committing crimes on screen, you see a three-dimensional portrait of why someone might commit that crime, how criminals are people too, and how you should even love them for the crimes that they commit because they’re just providing for their families or they’ve wronged or they’re just people and not perfect. This is particularly a luxury given to white male characters, since there few white female criminals as protagonists.

If and of the above shows were about black or brown folks, there would be a backlash of (white) people claiming that TV and movies are romanticizing criminals and are treating them too much like heroes and that it will affect viewers and encourage violence and “thuggish” behavior. And yet fictional white criminals get to have a deep fanbase who loves these white criminals, receive accolades and awards, get called amazing television that portray the complexities of human nature. Viewers of these characters see past the atrocious crimes and into their humanity, a luxury that white characters always have while characters of color rarely do. The closest that mainstream TV has come to showing black criminals as main characters is probably The Wire, and even then, the criminals share equal screen time and equal status as main characters as the police trying to stop them.

I couldn’t find the og post so I had to yoink this off reddit, but: 

Note: Edited and reposted from my personal blog.

As a fan of many characters deemed villains in their respective stories, redemption arcs are often a topic of discussion. Does this or that character deserve redemption? What makes for a satisfying redemption arc? Which redemption arcs work or don’t work?

However, it’s rare for me to come across a conversation that examines the concept of a redemption arc itself, let alone the forces that shape our understanding of what redemption means and how it works.

With that in mind, I’m going to see what I can do to crack open the assumptions behind redemption narratives and see what interesting alternatives present themselves.

As someone who studies Jewish texts as an entryway into Jewish values and ethics, the ways that majority gentile fandoms talk about characters transforming from villains to non-villains often strike me as reflecting Christian hegemony. Or, when speaking specifically of American media, puritanical Christian hegemony.

Redemption narratives are rooted in a deeply Christian framework where people do bad things because they are evil, sinful, or corrupt by nature. The task of redemption is to destroy or purge that corruption, and the surest way to do this is to suffer and die for others.

For an example of a redemption narrative, look no further than Anakin Skywalker. As Darth Vader, he murdered and terrorized his way across the galaxy for decades, but near the end of Return of the Jedi, he sacrifices himself to kill the Emperor and save Luke. Once he proved he still had good in him, he dies as Anakin Skywalker.

While Christianity has redemption, in Judaism, the vehicle for character transformation is atonement. In the Jewish worldview, people do bad things because they’re messy, finite and human. The task of atonement is to repair the damage you’ve done and return to a place of clarity. Sometimes, there is no making up for what you’ve done, so you find a way to live with that yet still strive to do better. The surest proof of atonement is having the opportunity to make the same mistake as before but choosing differently.

Books can be written about the differences between redemption and atonement, but for the sake of brevity, redemption is fixing who you are, and atonement is fixing what you’ve done.

An example of an atonement narrative would be Xena in Xena: Warrior Princess. As the Destroyer of Nations, Xena spent years in the pursuit of power and conquest, slaughtering countless people. But, inspired by Hercules, she realizes she can do better, so she does. She turns over a new leaf, using her strength, leadership, wits and skill to bring justice to the world and protect those who can’t protect themselves. She’s always struggling with ambition and bloodlust, and her reputation as a bloodthirsty conqueror follows her, but many times throughout the show, she chooses not to kill even if it would be easier for her to just murder the weakling in charge and take over.

I don’t think atonement narratives are particularly rare. It’s just that fandom is so habituated to analyzing stories and characters through the lens of Christian hegemony, usually without even knowing it, that alternative possibilities aren’t recognized, let alone explored or examined.

Let me give you an example. I love Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender. She’s such a layered, complex character, and she’s so much fun. She is, no contest, my fave. She’s also, in the narrative of the show, a villain. One question that gets asked a lot about her is whether or not she’s redeemable.

At first I didn’t think anything of it. Then I started paying attention to the language people were using to describe Azula, and so much of it has these weird connotations of Original Sin. From the way a lot of people talked about her, it’s as though she’s condemned to damnation from birth and that her behavior is an expression of her morally corrupt nature.

It became deeply unsettling to see so many people flat-out deny the possibility of change for her. The underlying message I get from that? Don’t bother trying to do better. Your moral worth is fixed and immutable, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

This paradigm is so jarring to my Jewish sensibilities. Judaism does not deny that people are capable of wicked deeds. The Talmud is very blunt about each person having an impulse to do good and an impulse to do evil. We all mess up. That’s life. But when we mess up, the path to atonement is always open. We can always repent, seek to repair the harm we’ve done and commit to doing things differently.

Calling my trans siblings that do injections (and anyone else that does regular self-injections)!

This is a ShotBlocker. It’s perfect if you have a fear of needles, injections, injection pain, or any other kind of injection anxiety. You place the plastic spikes on your skin and firmly press them down while doing your injection. Having many different points of pressure distracts you from injection pain and I’ve found it helps mentally as well.

Black people fight for freedom against state violence? ALL LIVES MATTER!

Black people fight to end their oppression? WHY ARE YOU ATTACKING ME?

Black people fight to remove racist imagery from the shelves of stores? WHAT ABOUT THE LUCKY CHARMS LEPRECHAUN AND THE REAL ACTUAL MAN WHO WAS A CHEF?

The irish have been propagandized and discriminated against because of being irish for centuries, and you shouldn’t dismiss legitimate complaints about stereotyping as white supremacy.

If Irish people have a problem with the depiction of the anti-Irish stereotypes then they must organize (like black people have done) to get it removed. I would love it if they would organize with us against our common oppressors.

But rather than doing that, you choose to get mad at me. What you are doing right now is answering “ Black people fight to remove racist imagery from the shelves of stores?” with “ WHAT ABOUT THE LUCKY CHARMS LEPRECHAUN?”

Rather than organizing to get your freedom you choose to aid and abet white supremacy because black people aren’t doing your fight for you. A defining trait of white supremacists is that they are addicted to and feel entitled to black labor. You feel entitled to black labor to fight against white supremacy as opposed to doing the work yourself. You are reinforcing the very white supremacy that is oppressing the Irish people and keeping them from freedom.

When you attack your comrades fighting for a better world as opposed to joining them in revolutionary struggle, you are aiding the oppressive structure which is oppressing you

Rather than assume that I am ignorant, maybe you should do some research yourself. Rather than viewing black people putting out one fire as endorsing all the other fires, maybe you should join us in stopping the blaze. Knock it off with the deliberate ignorance. Saying “black lives matter” isn’t saying that other lives don’t anymore than saying “save the rainforest” means that you hate any other forest or “fight breast cancer” is an endorsement of colon cancer or “remove these racist anti-Black depictions” is an endorsement of “racist anti-Irish depictions”

And I never said otherwise. But rather than reject white supremacy, you choose to attack me and all the people fighting against white supremacy. Rather than join in throwing off the chains of white supremacy, you choose to attack the very people fighting for your freedom.

I don’t want a world with racist depictions in them, so I organized with my comrades to make the world a better place.

First and foremost, don’t you dare curse at me child.

Second, your criticisms were not justified in any way shape or form. Nowhere in my post did I claim that person was wrong. Nowhere in my post did I disagree “that Irish stereotypes are a still a bad thing.” Rather, like an adult, I explained why this literal whataboutism is a tool to reify and strengthen white supremacy.

And again, rather than advocate for the Irish or join in liberatory struggle or do anything useful... you attack me.

Basically, you experienced fragility and rather than dealing with it you attacked the Black person who made you feel cognitive dissonance

I know it sucks. I was furious about it. But they do it because they love you. And the good ones will stop doing it once they realize they can trust you.

“Is this thing an invasion of privacy?”

You also shouldn’t assume your point of view is nuanced enough to be worthy of consideration, because if you are old, then you’re speaking on an issue you have literally no personal experience with. It’s an issue that has changed drastically as cell phones became omnipresent, which at least explains why you don’t understand it at all.

Black people fight for freedom against state violence? ALL LIVES MATTER!

Black people fight to end their oppression? WHY ARE YOU ATTACKING ME?

Black people fight to remove racist imagery from the shelves of stores? WHAT ABOUT THE LUCKY CHARMS LEPRECHAUN AND THE REAL ACTUAL MAN WHO WAS A CHEF?

The irish have been propagandized and discriminated against because of being irish for centuries, and you shouldn’t dismiss legitimate complaints about stereotyping as white supremacy.

If Irish people have a problem with the depiction of the anti-Irish stereotypes then they must organize (like black people have done) to get it removed. I would love it if they would organize with us against our common oppressors.

But rather than doing that, you choose to get mad at me. What you are doing right now is answering “ Black people fight to remove racist imagery from the shelves of stores?” with “ WHAT ABOUT THE LUCKY CHARMS LEPRECHAUN?”

Rather than organizing to get your freedom you choose to aid and abet white supremacy because black people aren’t doing your fight for you. A defining trait of white supremacists is that they are addicted to and feel entitled to black labor. You feel entitled to black labor to fight against white supremacy as opposed to doing the work yourself. You are reinforcing the very white supremacy that is oppressing the Irish people and keeping them from freedom.

When you attack your comrades fighting for a better world as opposed to joining them in revolutionary struggle, you are aiding the oppressive structure which is oppressing you

Rather than assume that I am ignorant, maybe you should do some research yourself. Rather than viewing black people putting out one fire as endorsing all the other fires, maybe you should join us in stopping the blaze. Knock it off with the deliberate ignorance. Saying “black lives matter” isn’t saying that other lives don’t anymore than saying “save the rainforest” means that you hate any other forest or “fight breast cancer” is an endorsement of colon cancer or “remove these racist anti-Black depictions” is an endorsement of “racist anti-Irish depictions”

And I never said otherwise. But rather than reject white supremacy, you choose to attack me and all the people fighting against white supremacy. Rather than join in throwing off the chains of white supremacy, you choose to attack the very people fighting for your freedom.

I don’t want a world with racist depictions in them, so I organized with my comrades to make the world a better place.