lillycaul:

I always find it so funny when people bitch about ‘forced diversity’.

because, like, once you work retail you start to see just how different everybody is.

for example, the other day I greeted a woman I was ringing up and started asking her the usual questions we’re supposed to ask (if they have a rewards card, etc) and she made a gesture pointing to her ear and mouthed ‘I’m deaf’.

and I was just like ‘Oh’, and so I skipped over the questions and just gave her a nice smile instead of the usual schpiel we’re supposed to give. she thanked me in sign language and smiled back before walking away.

and that’s just one tiny example. she was just one customer of hundreds that shift. that’s not even mentioning all the other types of people I ring in a day, of all ages, body sizes, races/skin colors, and gender expression.

it’s like…that’s how the world is.

when people say having diversity in a fictional universe seems ‘false’ or ‘forced’, that says to me that they must exist in a very homogenous, sheltered environment. because even working for a company that has a rather disproportionately-high white middle-class customer demographic, I still see more diversity on any given day than I tend to ever see in books and movies and TV shows.

it’s just kind of laughable to me when people say a movie/book/franchise has “too much” diversity. because there’s no such thing.

When they say diversity is being ‘forced’ they are saying “It’s bad enough I have to tolerate your existence here in this world. I don’t want to have to ever think about you in a fictional one.”

Of course, some of the people saying this live in communities that are 99% one group*. Where any diversity is hidden as well as possible, due to social pressure. My in-laws’ town has age differences, and to a certain extent size differences. Everything else is hidden as well as possible.

My husband didn’t find out he was Autistic until he was 30. Non-white (Mennonite) people don’t move there. No person would admit to being non cisheterosexual unless they had no other options. Poverty is contained in separate neighbourhoods.

People can go weeks without encountering anything noticeably ‘other.’ And they convince themselves that this is what the world is like.

*I noticed after writing this that OP had already mentioned it in passing. Growing up, I didn’t realize homogeneous communities existed. I always get excited to let people know how WEIRD the world is. ‘Some people never see difference!’ But for many people, it’s the opposite that’s a surprise. So sorry if this seems redundant.

(It’s just that I’m white, appear cishet, am a nice Christian girl, thin, English as a first language – and am hopelessly outside these people’s experience. Wrong church denomination, not neurotypical enough, grew up too poor. I grew up in areas SO MUCH more diverse than that. You adapt! The mindset just baffles me. [And the bigotry makes me leave the room and cry in the bathroom.])

bearwildered:

saltydorkling:

sixpenceee:

When customers walked into Edeka supermarket in Hamburg recently, they were surprised to find that the shelves were almost empty, and the small handful of products that remained were all made in Germany. It seemed like the supermarket had simply forgotten to restock their produce until customers saw the mysterious signs left around the shop. “So empty is a shelf without foreigners,” read one sign at the cheese counter. “This shelf is quite boring without variety,” read another.

It turns out that Edeka, in a rather controversial move, had opted to solely sell German food for a day in order to make a powerful statement about racism and ethnic diversity. As a result, there were no Greek olives, no Spanish tomatoes, and very little of anything else that can normally be found in a typical modern household. “Edeka stands for diversity, and we produce a wide range of food in our assortment, which is produced in the different regions of Germany,” said an Edeka spokesman. “But it is together with products from other countries that we create the unique diversity that our customers value.” (Source)

do this in America and nothing will remain

A very powerful statement about how cultural diversity has added to our lives!

[Two images of almost empty shelving units. The first has 5 items over the entire aisle, while the second only has 2.

End ID.]

whetstonefires:

kiragecko:

Ugh, researching any place in Sub-Saharan Africa is TERRIBLE.

I’m forced to use quotes by a racist mid-20th C English dude, who is translating works by a racist 13th C Italian dude, who is repeating hearsay from ANOTHER racist Italian dude.

The Swahili deserved, and still deserve, better.

ugh right the waswahili are even relatively well-documented…hang on, it’s a long shot but see if you can find any medieval sources translated from Arabic? the east african coast has a looooooong history with the indian ocean trade network, those data would be better.

Hahahaha!

No, those are much worse. Most of the sources from my period are Arabic or Chinese, and most of those are justifying slavery by explaining how the Swahili are subhuman.

BUT!

I didn’t what to retype a long quote from the dumb book and decided to see if it was online. It was! On an amazing site devoted to compiling every source that mentions the east coast, no matter how briefly. A NON RACIST site. One less layer of garbage to wade through! There’s even a pair of Javan sources!!

So that’s been pretty great.

Ugh, researching any place in Sub-Saharan Africa is TERRIBLE.

I’m forced to use quotes by a racist mid-20th C English dude, who is translating works by a racist 13th C Italian dude, who is repeating hearsay from ANOTHER racist Italian dude.

The Swahili deserved, and still deserve, better.

quasi-normalcy:

vicioushyperbolizer:

embyrr922:

pyrrhiccomedy:

ifshehadwings:

ovaadosedonconfidence:

Intuition is real. Vibes are real. Energy doesn’t lie. Tune in.

This is actually called thin slicing. Your brain recognizes patterns from very small “slices” of information by comparing them to things you have experienced before. This all happens very quickly on a subconscious level without our conscious mind being involved. So intuition is actually really fast pattern recognition, and it can be very accurate. So yeah, if you have a gut feeling that a person or situation is not good, get the hell out. Your brain knows what’s up.

When I was young – because I’ve always been a big skeptical pain in the ass – I thought that when people were talking about interpersonal “energy,” they were on some Gay Ass Shit.

Years later, after spending hundreds of hours reading studies about intuition and neuroscience and pattern recognition and the processing power of the subconscious mind, I realized that that kind of talk – “she has such good energy,” “you need to read the energy of the room,” “I just got some really bad energy off of that guy” – is a convenient shorthand for the lightning-fast, weirdly-accurate, real-as-fuck subconscious processing of the probability of positive or negative social outcomes likely to result from hundreds or thousands of variables. That “energy” isn’t a tangible thing floating around in the air. It’s your brain updating you constantly with information about your situation. Listen to it. Especially if it’s telling you to be nervous or scared. Your brain is very good at recognizing danger. Let the enormous processing power of your subconscious mind protect you. It’s better at spotting patterns than you are.

“Bad energy” isn’t some hippie shit. It’s your brain setting off a claxon because it knows something’s not right.

Thin slicing is wonderfully helpful, but be aware that if it’s doing its pattern recognition from bad sources, you need to actively override it. We’re raised in a racist society, inundated with racist media, and bombarded with subtly (or unsubtly) racist advice. Thin slicing can save your life, but it’s also the cause behind the unconscious elements of racism (and misogyny/ableism/antisemitism/islamophobia/etc.) that we all suffer from

Trust your instincts, but if your instincts tell you something that seems prejudicial, double check their work.

A+ addition

I have a question. What country i should move to? I consider france, canada, germany, but i have no idea how good they are really (if you have other options please share). Which country is the easiest&cheapest to move into and in which do i not get fired from my job and murdered if i come out of the closet? I don’t mind learning an entirely new language for that and my standarts are very low, i can sleep on the floor and eat ramen and fast food for months. I just want to get out of russia.

polyglotplatypus:

right now i wouldnt advise you to go anywhere in america because it’s a fucking shitshow, both economically and for LGBT stuff. now, on paper, germany and france are pretty similar, both immigration and economically-wise, but i don’t know enough about germany to give you more details surrounding lgbt people, i only know germany has gay marriage like us (not sure if adoption is allowed tho).

now, when it comes to france, which is what i know best: there are anti-discrimination laws but depending on where you go (i so far have had no real big lgbt related problem) you won’t really need those. french people on average are pretty chill w/ queer people so while some people may dislike you being queer, most of them won’t talk about it and will keep it to themselves.
on money related problems and such: i know paris looks like the most glowing option but it is absolutely fucking expensive to live in, so while that might be an entry point for you, look for smaller cities to live in, as they will be considerably cheaper for you to live in.
im not sure how russian people in particular are treated in the system but im pretty sure everyone in france, immigrants included, are entitled to social security. its just…. a lot of paperwork to figure out.

in any case, if you have more questions, feel free to ask.

Canada isn’t too bad. If you move to the Prairies, it’s like a slightly warmer Siberia! Other areas of the country have actually nice weather.

We’re okay on LGBT stuff. Legally, most rights are in place – marriage, adoption, gender neutral ID in some provinces. I can’t speak firsthand to how much discrimination people face (I’m pretty invisible), but I know a lot of people who are open about their identities. We’re pretty close to the US, so some of the hate has spilled over, but overall things are pretty good.

We ARE right next door to the US, though; if they fall, we go down with them. We don’t actually have any other borders.

The economy is doing okay. It costs a lot to live in Vancouver or Toronto, but once again, the Praires are a nice cheap alternative! But my provincial government just decided to stop offering universal healthcare to people with temporary visas, which I’m very angry about. Other provinces are better about that.

If you have disabilities, it might be harder. That’s another area where we’re STUPID. The government makes it hard to immigrate if you have any disability that might cost the healthcare system money.

I don’t think there’s any Russian/Slavic-centred racism. I’ve heard Europe has some anti-Eastern European sentiment, and older Americans might still have Cold War xenophobia, but Canadian racism is directed in other directions. (Unless you’re Muslim. We aren’t doing so great there. A lot of Canadians say, “we’re better than the Americans!” and then pretend the issue doesn’t exist.)

A few days ago, I was thinking about how – “I missed a lot in class because of focus issues due to ADD, and my Autistic husband talks about getting his questions in class shut down because he asked too many. My Autistic character may have some gaps in their knowledge.” – gives you a much deeper insight into a character than – “I’ve heard Autistic students have trouble in school.”

I think that’s why I trust POC writing about other people of colour more than I trust white people. POC may not all have had the same experiences, but they at least have an idea about what things to be looking at.

Things that sound fake but actually happen in the first Tarzan novel (1912)

mikkeneko:

phantomchick:

itsdoomisaudible:

nightcrawler-fan:

mademoiseli:

lesserjoke:

Tarzan grows up in the jungle because the sailors on his parents’ ship mutiny and maroon them there. Two decades later, the sailors on his cousin’s ship ALSO mutiny and maroon him and Jane in the exact same area where Tarzan happens to live

He’s raised by apes after his parents die because one of them who’s been carrying around her own dead baby is moved by the maternal spirit to drop its corpse in Tarzan’s crib and pick up the human baby instead

Tarzan teaches himself how to read and write fluent English by reading his parents’ old books

He later leaves Jane and co. really passive-aggressive notes telling them that he’s Tarzan and they better not touch his stuff

Tarzan also rescues them from various jungle troubles in person, but he can’t communicate with them because he can’t speak/understand spoken English

Jane and her friends spend their entire time in the jungle thinking that there are TWO DIFFERENT people who keep saving them: their reclusive host who leaves them salty messages and signs his name Tarzan of the Apes and then that other guy who lives with the apes

Literally they never put two and two together until Tarzan tracks them down in America and tells them he was Tarzan all along

Which he does in French

Because back in the jungle he rescued a French guy who taught him how to speak that language

So Tarzan can read and write English but speaks only French by the time he leaves the jungle

Jane goes back to America while Tarzan is off helping his French friend, and he follows her all the way home just to arrive the day before she’s gonna marry a rich guy to cover her father’s debts. It’s literally one of those Taylor Swift STOP THE WEDDING tropes, but with this weirdly buff ape man yelling in French instead

Jane’s father has debts because he borrowed a ton of money to charter a ship and follow a pirate treasure map he found, which, logical. We’ve all been there

The sailors on that ship are the ones who mutiny and maroon Jane earlier on, after finding the treasure and deciding they want to keep it for themselves

But Tarzan sees them rebury the chest and he digs it up and takes it with him to America to find Jane. The sailors are later very confused when they go back and find the treasure missing

Meanwhile Tarzan’s friend keeps trying to convince him that he’s the son of those two adult skeletons in his cabin, but Tarzan is all like, nah, I’m pretty sure that baby ape skeleton in the crib was theirs.

Oh also yeah, Tarzan totally just left all three skeletons lying around until his human friends showed up and were like, boy, you’re nasty

Also Tarzan needs a lot of convincing to believe that his ape foster mom wasn’t his birth mother

Like an absurd amount of convincing, really

His friend finally proves it by dragging Tarzan to a fingerprint expert in Europe to compare his prints to the baby ones that his dad fortuitously recorded in his journal just before he died.

The fingerprint proof means he’s actually the heir to his family’s title and wealth instead of his cousin, but he decides not to tell Jane about it

Because after Tarzan interrupts her wedding plans and gives her the pirate treasure (so that she doesn’t have to marry the rich guy), she turns down Tarzan’s own proposal and agrees to marry his cousin instead

And he’s like, alright, and leaves

Truly one of the great love stories of our time

I think she does change her mind and marry him in one of the sequels, but there are literally over two dozen of those that by all accounts are even weirder than this one and I just honestly don’t think I’m ready

Was Edgar Rice Burroughs ok?

@markhamillz

This is accurate and that book was amazing 10/10 recommend every time Burroughs was a real weirdo and it was so much better than the movie please read his nonsense

I read this book and I can attest to the accuracy of the above statements.

But I feel the need to add that Edgar Rice Burroughs was a salty mofo!
He threw such shade, what a dude.

Ok so here’s the story; he was working as a pencil sharpener wholesalemen for seven years (I know, startlingly mundane) when his wife had their second kid in 1909, he was bored beyond occupation and had copious spare time and began reading pulp-fiction magazines. In 1929, he recalled thinking that

“…if people were paid for writing rot such as I read in some of those magazines, that I could write stories just as rotten. As a matter of fact, although I had never written a story, I knew absolutely that I could write stories just as entertaining and probably a whole lot more so than any I chanced to read in those magazines.”

So what I’m telling you here is, this guy read something went this is TRASH, i could write better trash, in fact I WILL.

An inspiration to us all.

All of this is true, but not all people know the context. The story is ridiculous and bonkers, but that amusement was killed for me by the constant and EXTREME racism.

Also, really awful depictions of animals.

Sometimes you can take into context the time something was created. Personally, I find this book too offensive to do so.

Your mileage may vary, but I don’t want someone going in expecting a fun romp and running unprepared into Burroughs depiction of the African village near Tarzan’s territory.

madlori:

reddit-tales:

Parents, what’s the most absurd thing you’ve found on your kid’s social media?

My step son is 7. Found a bunch of searches for:

Dominicans with no hands and feet.

Dominicans with no heads.

Dominican chests.

Dominican torsos.

Dominican legs.

Dominicans in stores.

Dominicans for sale.

Silver Dominicans.

Black Dominicans.

White Dominicans.

I was at a loss of how to bring it up to him. Thankfully, the next day we were in a clothing store and he asked me why Dominicans don’t have hands or heads, then why there are so many different colored Dominicans. I remembered the internet searches and became a little upset. I told him to be quiet because what he was saying could be taken offensively by Dominican people. He then got frustrated and loudly said “Dominicans aren’t people” as he pointed to a statue next to us.

I breathed a sigh of relief and said “Mannequins”.

Plot fucking twist.