alright here’s the deal: obviously getting rid of Patrick Kane would be net good for the hockey community as a whole but that in no way would redeem the blackhawks even little bit. I get how if you’re white or non-native in general you could personally see how that would make you feel less bad but I got some news for you!!! They’re still a racist organization and it wouldn’t be totally chill to like them even if they dropped their rapist!!!
Did you know that there are NO federally recognized reservations in illinois despite the fact that one of the largest groups of indigenous people lived there pre european contact? Did you know that Illinois is an algonquin word? Did you know that most of the state’s highway system was built from native trade routes and trails? Did you know that the state’s agriculture system was built up from land already cultivated from native farmers?
Did you know that the illinois natives were forced off of their land? Did you know chicago probably would not exist as we know it if it hadn’t been for the hard work and progress the natives there made? The work that was stolen from them? The trail of tears passed through illinois. The blackhawk war to reclaim land that had been stolen took part in northern illinois. The entire state of illinois is soaked with native blood.
And how do we memorialize this?
The funny thing is that war bonnets belonged to the plains indians and Black Hawk was a woodland indian. The team can pretend that it’s “honoring” Black Hawk all the want, but it’s an empty lie as long as that racist caricature is worn on those jerseys. The team isn’t even named after Black Hawk himself, it’s named after a US infantry division that was named after Black Hawk.
lets also compare what the actual Black Hawk looked like versus the logo:
This wasn’t made to honor an individual, it’s a generic caricature. Don’t even get me started on how the US decides “good” indians from”bad” indians in history. Which individuals were ~noble worthy adversaries and which ones were villains that needed to be exterminated.
“But Dana! the Black Hawks aren’t as bad as say the Redskins or the Inidians!” like you’re theoretically correct that the blackhawks are doing the bare minimum of not using slurs as their team names but let me lay something on you:
This shit actively and continually hurts us. It hurts native children who already start off disadvantaged in this world. It hurts all of us when no one takes us fucking seriously because our cultures and our sacred traditions are reduced to spot rituals for profit. It doesn’t matter if the blackhawks are “less racist” than other teams. Racism is racism, especially on this scale especially when the franchise makes an astronomical amount of profit on the sale of their merchandise.
So yes, I’m sure if you aren’t native it’s easy to say “well if they fired this one player, it wouldn’t be so bad!” I’m sure most of hockey tumblr agrees with that statement! But you’re wrong and this is why. The blackhawks org is a product of a culture of murder and rape a theft and it’s a reminder to all of us native people of the abuse of our people.
This isn’t about being ~woke~ since I know so many of you are chomping at the bit to be hawks fans now that strome is over there. This is about native folks literally begging you to have some empathy for us and our centuries worth of trauma. Don’t just performatively hate the blackhawks because you’re supposed to, listen to us and really consider the implications. Consider that the org won’t even so much as change their logo, which is like the absolute bare minimum they could do. Think about WHY they won’t do that. Think about how this franchise profits off our our dehumination and stop minimizing that.
my primary reaction to infinity war is like…. wow. under hypercapitalism we literally can’t imagine any other fables about resource scarcity, huh?
i’m not even talking about only thanos. every time thanos said his plan to kill half the galaxy (because it’s “finite,” lol ok one-semester-of-econ guy) the other characters were like “no!” or “you can’t!” or “that’s madness!” instead of… counter-arguing, or saying anything like “couldn’t you just… double the resources with a snap of your fingers?” obviously, nobody wants thanos to murder all those people, but it’s also as if everyone tacitly accepts his framing of the problem. “i want to kill half the universe because of resource scarcity,” he says, and everyone says “no, that’s too cruel!!” instead of “wait… wait just a fucking second there, paul ryan.” they don’t even have a line like that even when they’re talking amongst themselves, just musing at how twisted his worldview is, that he can only imagine infinite power as an infinite power to kill. no time is spent imagining an alternative.
and i can’t help but think about how we in the quote-unquote “first world” treat the resource consumption of the so-called “developing world.” we, who have enjoyed the pleasures and benefits of fridges and air conditioning and televisions and cars and convenience food and all that shit for generations: we look at the growing energy & plastics consumption of the developing world and go “uh oh, they’re really running the tab up over there, we can’t let this happen, think of the…. trees!!!” we have the audacity to act like people living in poverty in the tropics wanting window fans is selfish and short-sighted for the environment, and meanwhile we use and waste all the energy and resources we can get ahold of, like a continent full of montgomery burnses.
infinity war could have taken thanos’s approach to scarcity somewhere bigger: somewhere that was useful as a parable for our hypocrisy. the way that ragnarok was brave enough to make a parable of empire; the way that black panther could explore diaspora and identity; the way that the winter soldier actually had something to say about the surveillance-terror state. but for all the moving pieces of infinity war, i don’t think it knew where its central ethic rested. certainly, its characters showed the desire to preserve and protect life. but that’s true of any superhero film.
what it comes down to for me, is that it’s not enough for this movie’s theme to be “let’s protect people, because killing people is bad!” or even, sorry steve, “we don’t trade lives.” it’s not enough. thanos basically says, “there’s one bowl of soup and one spoon and two hungry people, so one of them has to die.” so what i needed was someone to openly reject that whole proposition. not just “no, you shouldn’t kill trillions,” but “no, that is fucking ludicrous, i reject that worldview. i reject human life as a brutal competition. group survival, even in the face of scarcity or hardship, is exactly what the fuck we developed culture for.” like, we could use that message. that message, delivered palatably in a blockbuster action movie, could do some good.
but it wasn’t really in there. maybe in little bits, in pieces. maybe. so i’m sure we’re going to have to endure a bunch of “welllll, thanos was a bad guy, but he did have a point about scarcity” metas. because we’re still failing to see how asking other people to die so that the rest can enjoy plenty is itself exactly the fucking problem on this bitch of an earth
i will acknowledge that gamora comes the closest to doing this. gamora comes down on thanos for slaughtering half her planet. but!! but! then thanos gets this horrible line about how the children who grew up after his genocide got to have “full bellies” and the planet’s a “utopia” now. and what does gamora get to say back to that? nothing! she doesn’t get a line after that! she looks angry and grief-stricken, but the writers don’t give her a single fucking thing to say in disagreement!! like, how about: “growing up as a traumatized survivor of genocide isn’t very fucking utopian????” the writers couldn’t imagine that fucking line?
Yay I’m not the only one who thought, “Oh no, at some point I’m going to inevitably run into some jackhole trying to defend Thanos as having a point…”, and “OR you could just create more resources and distribute them equitably?”
I was so fucking pissed about that, because we KNOW what happens to cultures when substantial percentages of the population are eradicated by famine or disease or war. It is not a good time! It is not twenty years later and everyone’s well fed! Because if you eradicate 50% of a population, you destroy labour, you destroy infrastructure, you screw absolutely everything for the survivors.
THIS! Halving the population vs doubling the population hypothetically has the SAME DAMN EFFECT on population growth. Unless Thanos’ actual goal was to cripple the population in the way the previous post mentions.
And don’t think for a fucking minute that Thanos is not an unreliable source for what’s happening on Gamora’s planet.
The longer this movie sits, the angrier I get. I will not be seeing it a second time in theaters.
I haven’t seen any of those movies, but this strikes me as a Necessary Take on a villain in 2018 spouting college-student overpopulation rhetoric.
I am not a fan of college-student overpopulation rhetoric.
I am … Even less a fan of this big-budget franchise choosing it as a motive in 2018.
There have been many genocides in human history, and not one of those populations has bounced back with a cheery “Gosh, with all THOSE fuckers gone, I can finally stuff my face with croissants and accumulate wealth!”
The only way that killing some people results in other people getting more stuff is if you kill the people who hoard disproportionate amounts of The Most Stuff, and take their stuff on behalf of people who have less stuff. And that is called a Revolution, and that is frowned upon and considered antisocial in most circumstances. Stuff is distributed unequally. It’s a fact. Killing half of people does not magically free up 50% more stuff.
I don’t know how seriously people take the “finite amount of energy in the universe” thing, but it’s something that creationists attempt to use to bully everyone else. The idea is that it makes evolution seem improbable, “because entropy.” Under creationism, “entropy” means “things inevitably getting worse” and it fits in well with their view of the world. They think it’s physics. Creationists say “energy in a system dissipates”, and ask how life could evolve and be complex without God to power it.
The gentle stock response is that Earth is not a closed system. It receives a constant source of energy. This energy comes from the Sun. We have a direct conduit to a sufficient amount of energy to power the life force of the planet, in terms of Making And Eating Stuff. The Sun shines on the Earth, it grows the plants, and everything eats the plants or each other. (All of the other stuff happening on Earth is basically recreation.) but while the Sun will one day burn out, the plants do not eat up the Sun. Even if every square inch of the sinful earth was covered in greedy trees and cabbages, the Sun would continue to shine on it. That’s the energy source. It’s. The Sun. It’s usually up there somewhere.
So, like, if people are justifying genocide with “oh well, there was limited energy in the universe” then, like, do these Marvel movies take place somewhere without anyone having heard of the Sun? Does their planet have a plug leading out the back, that’s plugged into a big pot of fossil fuels? Does everyone have a mild concussion that makes teenage-philosophy-Discourse sound edgy and deep? Is the Sun in their universe actually just a Chris in a very large hat? This piece of lore worries and vexes me
One of the big names in population and resource theories was Malthus, who a bit before the industrial revolution theorised that humanity was on its way to a cataclysmic event due to population increase and subsequent resource scarcity. His theories proved false, however, when the industrial revolution came along and we started producing more food, allowing us to support the population. His issue was that he didn’t take into account human ingenuity, or compassion. Now, I’m not trying to say the industrial revolution was all roses and puppy dogs for the majority of humanity (there was some pretty horrific stuff going on in a lot of places) but it got us through without near – extinction. And we’ve continued to develop and increase our ability to support more people, not just with food but energy, medicine, and a myriad of other resources. And again, the system is far from perfect, there are shortages all over the world and capitalism is terrible, but the point is if we could get our socialist butts in gear long enough to distribute things evenly then literally no one would have to go without. The issue isn’t resources this time, it’s distribution and a few assholes at the top making it difficult for everyone.
if someone says “degenerate” there is a 93% chance they are a neo-nazi
neo-nazi buzzwords:
referring to minorities as a dehumanised collective (i.e “the blacks” instead of “black people”, “the jews” instead of “jewish people”, “the gays”, “the illegals” etc. etc.)
“cuck” “normie” “liberal snowflake”
“deus vult my friends”
“Is he /our guy/ ?” or any variation of the /our guy/ meme
“red-pill” or “alt-right” (in regards to someone’s political stance)
holocaust denial in any way shape or form (from flat out it didn’t happen to any kind of attempt to minimise/normalise the crimes of the nazis through spreading false facts or making jokes about it)
using the concept of triggers in a comedic way
talking about “alpha” and “beta” males
“anti-racism = anti-white” / “this is anti-white propaganda” / “white pride worldwide”
“multiculturalism = white genocide”
“islamization of america/europe”, “eurabia”
glorious (when applied to a political figure or nation)
talking about cultural marxism as if it’s an actual thing
“preserving the future for white children” (anything that evokes images of white children being in need of saving from the imagined threat of white genocide)
“why are only white countries asked to be multi-cultural” ignoring the overwhelming presence of white people in the americas, oceania and south africa
citing false statistics about difference in IQ amongst ethnic groups
neo-nazis are currently on a campaign to rebrand and repackage themselves to win over more mainstream support. this has resulted in the emergence of the “alt-right” as a legitimate political body, to push back against neo-nazism we have to identify it where we see it. if you see someone online using any of the terminology listed above there is a good chance that they are part of the burgeoning group of white supremacist who are using online platforms and cloaked language to disperse their hatred to a wider audience. be aware and be vigilant.
side note: incase the neo-nazis on this site co-opt this post and turn it into a “tag urself” of some sort im gonna pre-emptively say, with all my heart, i hope you choke
The 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims squeezed precariously into the
north-west state of Rakhine, in mainly Buddhist Burma, bordering
majority Muslim Bangladesh, are stateless and unwanted.
Neither country will give them citizenship even though their
families’ roots in modern-day Rakhine, once called Arakan, can be traced
back to the Eighth Century.
Since World
War Two they have been treated increasingly by Burmese authorities as
illegal, interloping Bengalis, facing apartheid-like conditions that
deny them free movement or state education while government forces
intermittently drive out and slaughter them.
Over the
past year, military operations against Rohingya villages have been so
intense and cruel that the minority’s defenders have warned of an
unfolding genocide.
The United Nations has reported that the army may have committed ethnic cleansing.
…The
latest military crackdown, which began on August 25, caused almost
90,000 Rohingyas to flee under fire to squalid, overflowing relief camps
across the Bangladeshi border in just two weeks. Officially close to 400 people had died by early September, but human
rights activists claim to have confirmation of at least 1,000 deaths
and believe the figure is much higher. The death toll will inevitably rise after Burma, also known as
Myanmar, blocked UN agencies from delivering vital food, water and
medicine supplies to 250,000 Rakhine residents desperately in need.
More than 100 gay men have been detained “in connection with their nontraditional sexual orientation, or suspicion of such,”according to the New York Times, which cites the opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta. The Russian newspaper says it confirmed the news with government officials and an analyst of the region also confirmed the news to the Times with her own sources.
Three men are known to have been murdered, although the real number is likely to be higher.
in almost every genocide, the first “act” is the rounding up and killing of a group of men, specifically.
In “root and branch”
genocides they [”civilian men of ‘battle age’”] are often the first group to be separated out and massacred, paving the
way for the murder of women, children, and elderly men. In more common articulations
of genocide, however, they can be the only group slated for outright massacre, while
women, children, and elderly men suffer a range of alternative fates involving rape, sexual
exploitation, torture, forced maternity, murder, and expulsion.
as the rest of this article explains this isn’t to say that men have it worst in a genocide, but that it’s important when you see a very common red flag for genocide to pay attention to the “conflict” in case any more markers of an impending genocide occur.
the g word is really loaded and i’m not bringing this up because i want to start an avalanche of “CHECHNYA IS COMMITTING GENOCIDE AGAINST GAY PEOPLE” fear mongering (that is the absolute last thing that i want). it’s just not possible to prevent any genocide without questioning whether a current conflict might eventually get there. and i do not think it’s nothing that genocide watch is reporting on this.
Russian newspapers and human rights groups report that more than 100 gay men have been detained “in connection with their non-traditional sexual orientation, or suspicion of such” as part of a purge. Several people were also reportedly feared dead following violent raids.
In a chilling response, a Chechen government spokesperson denied that there are any gay people to detain, insisting that “you can’t detain and harass someone who doesn’t exist in the republic”. The Kremlin denied any knowledge of a purge.
But reports have since emerged that the men arrested are being kept in horrific concentration camp prisons, where violent abuse and torture is common.
Based on interviews with eyewitnesses and survivors, Novaya Gazeta reports that a secret prison has been set up in the town of Argun to detain the men arrested in the purge.
One man who was released from the camp told the newspaper that he was subjected to violent “interrogations” at the camp, as Chechen officials attempted to get him to confess the names and locations of more gay men.
The officials also seized his mobile phone, targeting his network of contacts regardless of whether they were gay or not.
The camp was reportedly set up by Chechen forces in a former military headquarters in the town.
The newspaper reports allegations that the Speaker of the Parliament of Chechnya was among officials to visit the site, though the claims have not been substantiated.
The detainees face electric shock torture and violent beatings, while some of them have been held to ransom and used to extort their families.
Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch wrote: “For several weeks now, a brutal campaign against LGBT people has been sweeping through Chechnya.
She continued: “Law enforcement and security agency officials under control of the ruthless head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, have rounded up dozens of men on suspicion of being gay, torturing and humiliating the victims.
“Some of the men have forcibly disappeared. Others were returned to their families barely alive from beatings. At least three men apparently have died since this brutal campaign began.”
She added: “These days, very few people in Chechnya dare speak to human rights monitors or journalists even anonymously because the climate of fear is overwhelming and people have been largely intimidated into silence.
“Filing an official complaint against local security officials is extremely dangerous, as retaliation by local authorities is practically inevitable.
“It is difficult to overstate just how vulnerable LGBT people are in Chechnya, where homophobia is intense and rampant.
“LGBT people are in danger not only of persecution by the authorities but also of falling victim to ‘honour killings’ by their own relatives for tarnishing family honour.”
Alexander Artmyev from Amnesty International spoke to Metro.co.uk.
He said that people who are not in Russia can help by joining the charity’s Urgent Action on Chechnya.
The action encourages people to write in Russian or your own language to Chairman of the Investigation Committee and Acting Head of the Investigation Committee for the Chechen Republic.
Amnesty has also asked the letter, which should ask for an investigation and appeal for protection for LGBT individuals, to be copied into Human Rights groups and diplomatic missions from your country.
Steel Phoenix Studios 