Dogs are gr8

The Grammys didn’t create that “Best Asian Music” category this year to be diverse. They did it to continue boxing non English speaking artists but especially BTS, so they won’t have to nominate them in the main categories with the rest of their peers. This was the Grammys telling BTS they’ll give them a Grammy win but under their own boxed category. We give you the scraps and you are supposed to take them. They said no.

They’ve been doing this for years under the disguise of diversity. “Best Traditional Country Album” a new category introduced after Beyoncé won in the Best Country Album category because they couldn’t stand a non white artist redefining that genre. “Best African Music” being introduced in 2024 to keep Tyla away from other pop girls. And “Best Latin Song” being introduced for this year along with Best Asian Music after Bad Bunny right fully dominated all of the charts last year. And mind you, Brazilian artists cannot even submit their work for this category because the rules say it has to be 51% in Spanish, even when Brazilians speak Portuguese but are Latin people.

It was never about diversity. It’s about boxing and categorizing these artists when global music (or more like non English music) is becoming bigger each year and this is the only way they can keep their American/British peers safe in their space.

In BTS’ latest album ARIRANG, they have a song called Alien where they describe feeling alienated by the industry duo to their xenophobic behavior. Them creating this category when they released one of the biggest albums of the year is proving them right. At the end, this was the right choice.

Who’s more sexually desirable: Scar or Thanos?

No context; no middle ground. Choose your fighter.

If you think "children should not be allowed in this space," you HAVE TO reckon with the fact that you are now excluding parents (and very often women specifically) who don't have access to childcare. You are isolating people who are poor, or rural, or single parents, or any number of other factors that might prevent someone from having on-demand childcare. You are cutting them off from being able to exist in public. You are denying parents and children the ability to fully participate in society.

My mom spent several years only leaving the house to buy groceries or take me to school, and even then, people would still come up to her to complain TO HER FACE about how she shouldn't bring a crying toddler to Walmart. Entitled strangers would literally try and demand that my mom leave and come back without the kids.

"Why can't your husband watch them?" Because he was at work, usually working extreme amounts of overtime so we didn't get evicted, because landlords don't like it when you stop paying rent.

"Why can't you send them to daycare?" Because that costs money.

"Why can't your teenager stay home with them and babysit?" Because I also deserved to be able to leave the house for something other than school, and taking me to the grocery store was how my mom taught me to manage a household budget, shop sales, and meal plan.

"Don't bring your kid in public if you can't CONTROL them and make them stop crying!" Kids cry when they're upset, and being dragged around a store is upsetting! Don't be an asshole! Children are human beings who are still learning how the world works, and they don't have a lot of agency. You'd cry, too.

"Spank them until they learn to stop crying!" That's just straight-up child abuse, Jesus Christ.

We have got to stop framing our oppression in ways that promote the idea that other people cannot relate to our struggles. Not only does it isolate comrades in the struggle, it actively diminishes recognition of other struggles--often including those even more horrific than what we are at risk of. And this happens especially between Gay and Black struggles.

"when have straight people ever had to check what states were safe for them?" Sundown towns are still a thing. Starlight tours. What states have abortion access? What states have open carry? What states have stand your ground? What states have 3-strike rules? Women, people of color, disabled people, immigrants, and more have had to be abundantly cautious where they travel to. Straight trans people have much more travel risk right now than gay cis people.

It's a new iteration of the same tired question: "imagine if straight people weren't allowed to marry" interracial marriage in the US is younger than my parents. We disgrace people of color by forgetting their history and contemporary struggles, and we abandon queer people of color, Black queer people, by segmenting their overlapping fights.

All the episodes of Galavant are on the Internet Archive!