uncomfortably cold and paranoid

Hey kids, your favorite black barista here. So I am the only person of color employed at my specific shop (I live in suburbia and it’s a living hell), and today we had this as our trivia question (answer is B). I didn’t pick it, although almost every white person who came in assumed I did. I thought I’d share some of the gems I heard because of it:

Older White Man who always answers the trivia every single fucking day and has NEVER complained about the questions: Who the hell cares?? They’re all idiots anyway. I hate this question. White Co-Worker: Couldn’t agree more! Me: *horrified silence*

White Woman: Wow this is a tough one, I don’t think many people who come in here listen to rap music. Do I look like I listen to rap music? *laughs* Me: Well I’m pretty sure you don’t need a certain look to listen to music, just…ears. So yeah, you do! White Woman: Oh…sure…

12 different White Customers throughout my shift: Did you write this question?

White Woman #2: Why would you choose a question that only certain people would know? Me: *almost rolls my eyes into oblivion*

College-aged white guy: Hmm… *turns to black guy waiting in line behind him whom HE DOESN’T FUCKING KNOW* You got the answer to this right? *laughs* Black Guy: *gives me the “can u believe this fucking cracker” look* Me: *gives him the “I know brotha just pray to the lord for strength” look*

13.2K likes on an explicitly antisemitic post, saying that no jews should have ever lived in Palestine past, present and future. The juice box emoji is a dogwhistle for jews because jews and juice sound similar.

if Israel - where there are arabs and jews living together is lush and green,

Cute visitor in Alaska

I'm out of entertainment now, and I don't really feel like I was able to make a difference, but I hoped someone would. I left when the online creator market was fairly young. When YouTube became a way that people could actually make money, I was really excited. The whole promise of all this was supposed to be that people could make things without having to make those kinds of compromises. That's why this kind of stuff disappoints me so much. Hearing how Glitch treats animators and other team members and what the internal culture is like is very much deja vu, and I find that a miserable waste. You created an entirely new system just to what, copy the old one exactly but with yourself at the top? That's pathetic.

While I'm here, I want to make something else very clear while I'm here as a natural consequence of what I said above: every non black voice actor says the n word for fun. it would be easier to list exceptions. It is critical that you do not interpret "non-black" as "white" in this context because it would be a mistake to think that brown voice actors do it even fractionally less. This is an issue embedded deep in the cultural foundations of voice over as an industry and creative field. I have met voice actors, plural, who say the n word at the beginning of every session as a way to break the initial tension in a booth and remove mental restrictions on the performance, so they say, because it's taboo. It's essential that they feel absolutely NO restriction on their performance, you see, and the n word taboo is the GREATEST restriction on casual speech in our society. Ridiculous. If you have to say slurs to get out of your own head, that's a flaw in your acting process and you need to get better at your job. But genuinely, that's how casual it is. So whenever I hear that SoAndSoVA said a slur somewhere, I'm not particularly surprised, and I'm not really sure what to do either. This is something that I've watched Black actors put up with. Reasons vary. It can be as simple as not wanting to negatively impact their career, or often genuinely not wanting to risk cutting off income for other marginalized actors "just" over this (because let's be honest, Black queers show up for White queers in a way that never really happens in reverse). Or sometimes they just seem to really think it's funny. I don't know how to show up for them, but I try to do the best that I can. I ask.

Well you saw it from within, and I can see it clearly from the outside.

I’m under the impression that the standard of indie can and WILL change. It just has to, cus I got shit to do and I don’t have the time nor the will to pander to white bullshit. It’ll be a challenge for sure, but with new technology and new faces arriving on the scene every day, there’s an infinite possibility for growth and change.

But the fact is is that the industry itself needs to be overhauled, it just does. The foundation is rotten, and that’s why it continues to pander to so many bigoted individuals, because the space was built for them first. If we’re going to set a new standard, then we need a new space.

Happy Black Fae Day!

I did this as part of a collaboration post with many other wonderful black creatives over on IG. My theme was Warrior Fairy.

Creative Direction and editing by me