What Could Possibly Go Wrong

i’m going to be really honest with you guys i think the tendency to read the absolute worst possible intentions into every action you don’t agree with is getting too automatic and it’s eating you from the inside out

but can we TALK about the racialized subtext of "his wife has filled his house with chintz" linking together femininity, indian export goods, commercialism, and superficiality vs "to keep it real I fuck him on the floor" linking together masculinity, AAVE, authenticity, sexuality, and vulgarity? if our aim as critics of poetry is to reevaluate this text and arrive at a feminist interpretation then we must also consider the poem's vexed relationship to race so as to not be anti-black in our criticism of the piece's presentation of masculinized sexuality nor uncritically reproduce and elevate its image of orientalized femininity.

also, from looking at the original post (non-explicit gay sex photo but still a gay sex photo so you've been warned): there isn't even any chintz in the photo. the design elements in the room all look broadly western european with the exception of a tall ceramic vessel that may be decorated with a reproduction of a chinese ink painting. chintz is an indian textile pattern, you'll see it on dresses, bedspreads, wallpaper, tapestries, upholstery, etc., but nothing like that is in the image. to imply that the house's interior design is frivolous, artificial, and unusable, the poem utilizes "chintz" despite the obvious lack of chintz because "chintz," as a popular asian export good that went on to be imitated by european manufacturers, is considered kitsch, cheap, and womanly. and, though the angle partially obscures them, the two men in the photo both appear to be white, so the poem uses the AAVE phrase "keep it real" despite the lack of black people to invoke the perception of AAVE as raw, crass, and primal. in both cases, the racialized language is being ascribed to european/white subjects to impart the white subjects with different moral values.

Online Imagined Black English by Manuel Arturo Abreu re the last point!

[Image description: Screenshot of a video called "I'm considering biting you" with a cat staring at someone who is pointing a finger in her face. /end image description]

deadbeat group chat member

being as i am an idiot, and having been one my whole life, i just wanna say that i find it very easy to do nothing, and go nowhere. i eat chocolate late at night in the dark. i stand in the garden also. and i’m often waiting for something to happen. and i’m stupid.

going on a guilt trip do yall want anything

if you really cared about me you wouldn't have to ask

but for this two-faced bitch there are twice as many stars as usual

if u think abt it i guess bald ppl are the most aerodynamic. i bet if u shot a bald person out of a cannon they wld fly way further than a haired person

which of course is a huge advantage in day to day life

[ID: Writing in thick black marker reading "BE SO COMPLETELY YOURSELF THAT NO ONE IS ATTRACTED TO YOU OR WANTS TO EMPLOY YOU" /End ID]