sigelphoenix

The people and their cultures: POC and the movies: With the movie "adaptation" of Avatar, a lot more people are becoming aware of the problem of whitewashing in the media, or, as unusualmusic puts it here, "stealing our stories and retelling them with white people. Dressed in our cultures. Which are then considered exotic." What people then need to understand is that The Last Airbender is part of a pattern - a tradition - of white people hijacking other people's stories for their own glory, and Avatar is just the most recently high-profile example of this. However enraged The Last Airbender makes me, it's ultimately only one of many such battles.

If anything I said above comes as the slightest surprise to you, you would do well to read this article. It's beautifully thorough, and explains why this is too persistent to explain away as "unintentional," or "not a big deal," or "just looking for the best actor to play the part."

The Terrible Bargain We Have Regretfully Struck: This is how casual misogyny from the men we love pushes us to make the call of "Swallow shit, or ruin the entire afternoon?" on a daily basis, and how the result is to make us - not hate, which would be easier both for us and for the anti-feminists - but mistrust them. We're "[n]ot fearful; just resigned - and on my guard."

This dynamic translates almost point-for-point to other oppressions, as the writer herself points out. If you are male, white, cisgendered, straight, abled, and/or middle-class, please read this and think about the people you love who are female, of color, transgendered, queer, disabled, and/or poor.

I love you, but there are times I have to defend myself against you.

I know you love me, but there are times you have to defend yourself against me. I will do my best to make myself trustworthy every day.