This week in The Slacktiverse, February 11/12 2012

The Blogaround

This week Ana Mardoll posted:
Twilight: In Which I Have Questions
If you’ve been disappointed by the lack of examples of every single girl in Forks being creepy, abusive, and territorial in their behavior so far, today is your lucky day! Because this is the chapter in which every single girl in Forks is portrayed as a terrible human being!

This week Ana Mardoll posted:
Author Interview: Slactivite Yami on "Wolfbound"
Did you know that one of our Slacktivites has self-published a novel? Because OMG Slacktivite Yami has self-published a novel! *excited*

Chris the cynic writes: This week I wrote about what my life is like given my emotional problems (Trigger Warning: discussion of anxiety and depression), and wrote several Twilight related things including: what Bella might say to Edward after traveling with the Doctor, how Bella's mother is not like a lobster, Edith explaining to Ben how to use words like 'whither' and 'thither', and (Trigger Warning: Traumatic childbirth/death) contrasts between what I know about Breaking Dawn: Part 1 and Moneyball.

Literata mused on the fact that great work (for example, logistics for Pagans) is often boring which led to musings about how to make great work less boring.

yamikuronue writes: Last weekend I reviewed two more adagio teas; this weekend I did the same, the post going up a little early.
I only managed one TPD deconstruction post, and unfortunately it's kind of a boring bit.
I did, however, put up an interview on Ana's blog and a bit of steampunk costume design.

Sarah writes: This week, I wrote a mish-mash post and two short book reviews.
Also, as a sort-of follow-up to my gentrification post, some friends of mine are involved in an interesting project in North Philly called Kensington Renewal that will rehab houses and help renters in the neighborhood purchase them.

With biking on the mind, Storiteller this week considered the various identities of those who bike for transportation, both as seen by society and self-imposed in A Cyclist by Any Other Name Would Spin Just as Sweet. She also considers the ways in which biking and other human-scaled forms of transportation help build and strengthen community in "It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country.".

Froborr writes: I have posted my notes for my upcoming Analyzing Anime 101 panel. I welcome and would greatly appreciate any criticism or suggestions, and especially any recommendations for further reading I could suggest to the audience.
Also, since we have some bronies in the house... my fiancee, annoyed at the fact that drawings of the My Little Pony characters as humans almost always depict them as white and very traditionally feminine, has started on a series of drawings of the characters as superheroes of color. If anyone is interested, the three she has done finished so far are: Its a bird? Its a plane? Its RAINBOW DASH!, Rainbow Dash's sidekick KID SCOOTALOO and Sorceress Supreme Twilight Sparkle.

Coleslaw writes: Seriously, an Alabama legislator claims the Bible advises not to raise teachers' pay. Most women, when they spend $250 in a shoe store, wind up with something they are excited to wear on their feet, but not me. And I never should have made fun of my husband's week of jury duty, because now it's my turn.

Nick Kiddle writes: I have a post up this week, Ableism at the market about my frustration with a colleague's willingness to believe tabloid lies. (Trigger Warning: demonisation of benefits claimants).

Michael Mock writes: This week at Mock Ramblings has been devoted to shorter, less involved thoughts and projects. This is mainly because Secondborn was diagnosed with RSV. Meanwhile, Firstborn considered a video-game-related philosophical question: Ghosts Or Waffles? I posted some thoughts on Complementarianism and "Masculine" Christianity, then followed up by wondering why I even think about this stuff. I wrapped the week up by observing what happens when you finally get a good night's sleep after a week of staying up late to monitor the sick toddler: the end of a very long week. Hopefully I'll get back to more involved projects next week.

Last week Ana Mardoll posted:
Twilight: In Which We Leave Chapter 5
I do not think we're supposed to want Bella to turn and walk back to class because she's suddenly realized that no matter how pretty Edward is, he is dangerous and violent and frightening. I do not think we're supposed to want Bella to vocalize in her narrative that she's uncomfortable getting in a car with someone who thinks nothing of handling her the way Edward did just now. So why do I think all these things?

Last week Ana Mardoll posted:
Narnia: The Arthurian Court
Peter is saying that they have literally never done something halfway. They've never gotten halfway through a war or a building project or a quest or anything and reconsidered things or discovered new information that made them change their mind. They are the most dangerous of zealots: ones who will never, ever consider doing things another way.

In case you missed this

(Trigger Warning: Heartbreaking but non-gory picture) 2012, World Press Photo of the Year, Samuel Aranda, photographer. A woman holds a wounded relative in her arms

(Trigger Warning: Many of the photographs in the World Photo Gallery are disturbing and triggering....proceed with caution.) 2012 WORLD PRESS PHOTO View the entire collection of winning images from the 55th World Press Photo Contest.

Leum reports: (Trigger Warning: Sexism, glorification of corrupt capitalism) CNBC published this article on How to Date a Wall Street Man that reeks of privilege, heteronormativity, and male entitlement.

ESPN’s female commentator complaint form survives a decade

Things you can do

You can answer a call for help: (Trigger Warning: Rape, depression, rape culture, self-injury) TBAT has received an email from one of our readers. Both READER and the friend READER is worried about live in the United States. The friend was raped. READER is concerned that hir friend, who has a history of self-injury and what seems to be undiagnosed depression is now increasingly feeling self-hatred and self-blame about the rape. READER writes:

I'm asking you folks, because you seem to have knowledge of these things-- do you have any links to help people who have internalized the victim-blaming of rape culture?

Anyone who has contacts, ideas or links can add them to this post or email them to TBAT. TBAT will forward the information to READER. TBAT will not divulge the identity of READER or anyone who emails contacts, ideas or links without prior consent.

You can donate to Kiva. Kiva is a non-profit organization with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. Leveraging the internet and a worldwide network of microfinance institutions, Kiva lets individuals lend as little as $25 to help create opportunity around the world.

You can donate to The Global Fund for Women. [The fund advocate[s] for and defend[s] women's human rights by making grants to support women's groups in five regions: Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East and North Africa, Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, Asia and Oceania and the Americas.

From TRiG: Please sign a couple of petitions for trans* rights.

1. In Germany, Alex, an 11-year-old girl may be forceably comitted to a mental-health institution and forced to live as a boy. Alex says that she has identified as female for as long as she can remember.

2. There's a petition asking the press to stop using transphobic terms.

--Co-authored by the Slacktiverse Community

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The Slacktiverse is a community blog. Content reflects the individual opinions of the contributors. We welcome disagreement in the comment threads, and invite anyone who wishes to present an alternative interpretation of a situation to write and submit a post.

Comments

[Froborr]

Viga has since made a third picture, Sorceress Supreme Twilight Sparkle: http://starlightv.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d4pek5z

[The Board Administration Team]

@Froborr: Just added it to the blogaround.

[Madhabmatics]

Alabama politicians are the worst. I don't know if ya'll have been following the immigration bill controversy, but Alabama passed the most aggressive, invasive immigration law in the nation. NPR did a great story about it on This American Life, which has a segment where the interviewer asks one of the Republican legislators who passed the bill whether or not Jesus would have voted it. He answers no.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/456/reap-what-you-sow

The bill works by trying to create a hostile environment for people of Hispanic descent - illegal or illegal. Vigilante "enforcement" has been going on, with people at wal-mart refusing to take or cash checks for people of hispanic descent without a birth certificate, etc.

(One of my sisters friends in the band, when he found out what was happening to Hispanic people due to this law, commented "I never thought there would be a day where I would be glad to be black in Alabama.)

[Madhabmatics]

"illegal or illegal" should read "citizens, legal immigrants, and illegal immigrants."

[Froborr]

@TBAT: THanks!

@Madhabmatics: Thanks for the correction, I do *not* like it when people refer to other people as "illegal," as if there existence is a crime.

[bluefrog]

I've just made my 25th Kiva loan, and I can't recommend them enough. I've been recycling the same $125.00 since 2008, adding a few dollars now and then to help pay Kiva's expenses. Out of those 25 loans,the three most recent are still paying back, and only one ever defaulted--on the last payment due, of which my share was less than $2.00. For a modest amount of money, you can do a great deal of good for people like a furniture maker in Kenya, a weaver in Guatemala, a cheese-maker in Peru, and a butcher in Mongolia, who are some of the people to whom I've lent my $25 dollar share of their loans.

[Froborr]

So apparently some people find drawing ponies as POC horribly offensive, because ponies do not have races so you should draw them as having no race, meaning white. *facepalm*

[Mmy]

@Froborr: Huh, say what!

[Froborr]

Well, white is the default, right? *headdesk*

[Mmy]

@Froborr: Where are people saying this? I went looked at the pictures (was impressed) and saw no comments.

[Nenya]

@Froborr: Bzuh? That's not right! None of the ponies (except maybe Rarity) ARE even white, on the show--they're pink and blue etc etc. So why on earth should that map to any specific race if you're interpreting them as human? Draw them Asian or Hispanic or African or Caucasian if you want, or make Pinkie-Pie actually still bright pink, but default-to-white is completely unnecessary.

Unless you want to go with "the show is pretty terrible in its treatment of First Nations and ponies with obvious 'jungle tribal' markers, therefore show defaults to white", which I could vaguely see, but I don't think THAT's what people are going for!

[Froborr]

@Mmy: Viga was contacted by a deviant art group founded to encourage drawing the ponies as POC, because apparently other people *were* doing it, and got a lot of nasty comments in response.

[MercuryBlue]

There've been honest-to-FSM black ponies on the show, haven't there? The image I'm remembering is two guards at the foot of Celestia's throne. Inasmuch as a horse can have a throne. I seem to recall a big flap over that.

[chris the cynic]

So apparently some people find drawing ponies as POC horribly offensive, because ponies do not have races so you should draw them as having no race, meaning white. *facepalm*

That is so absurd and offensive that it should only be possible for such a statement to exist in over the top parody. (Do you hear me reality? You're doing it wrong.)

If I were to try to draw ponies, or horses or donkeys or whatnot for that matter, as humans without imposing human race on them it seems like the most logical solution would be to use fur color as skin color, and mane color as hair color. Making them all white if your goal is to avoid human race makes the opposite of sense.

[Anonymous]

tw racism

My guess...as an ally, not as a POC, is that it depends on who is doing the complaining and why. Black people have a history of being compared to animals in a derogatory way. For example, even though I really like monkeys and think monkeys are the coolest things ever, it would be extremely offensive to compare a black person to a monkey, in light of the history of people of colour being seen as "less than human, akin to animals".

Horses and ponies are domesticated animals which are used for manual labour, and while intelligent, are not viewed as intelligent as humans. Because of that history, if someone had a problem with My Little Ponies being personified as people of colour, I would completely understand.

But, on the other hand, it is also problematic that My Little Ponies are personified as white-as-default. If people are objecting because "white should be default" then they're wrong. If they're objecting because "people of colour are not animals" then they have a point.

I don't know what the answer is. I like the "fur colour -> skin colour, mane colour -> hair colour" suggestion Chris made.

[Froborr]

@Anonymous: I can definitely see that as a legitimate complaint, but no, these complaints are all about white being the default.

@Mmy: As far as I know, there have never been black ponies, but there have been some fairly dark purple ones. The author of the (completely wrong, IMO) controversial Ms. article that sort of helped spark the brony phenomenon claimed that some ponies in a subservient roll represented black people, but then again, she also claimed that a character was a lesbian stereotype because... she was kinda tomboyish and has rainbow hair? Honestly it came across very much as outrage addiction.

Now, when they finally did have a pony who was probably meant to be black (a zebra named Zecora)... yeah, fairly problematic character. But she was introduced long after the Ms. article.

[Froborr]

Oops, that was @MercuryBlue, not @Mmy.

[Timothy (TRiG)]

Please sign a couple of petitions for trans* rights.

1. In Germany, Alex, an 11-year-old girl may be forceably comitted to a mental-health institution and forced to live as a boy. Alex says that she has identified as female for as long as she can remember.

2. There's a petition asking the press to stop using transphobic terms.

TRiG.

[The Board Administration Team]

@TRiG: Just added your link to the main post.

[kisekileia]

Here are a couple of links for the person who was raped.
The Ask First campaign at a university near me--the links on the sidebar are important.
Trigger warnings for rape, sexual assault, victim-blaming, and statutory rape on this one: The Not Rape Epidemic from Racialicious.
Sexual assault prevention tips that put the blame where it belongs:
TW: rape culture: Study indicating that men do know that subtle ways of refusing sex indicate lack of consent, they just don't apply that knowledge to rape of women.

[Warsi]

This is a good article about the threat of militant secularism.

Mentions that "one of the first acts of totalitarian regimes was the targeting of organised religion", so a good followup to Froborr's justified attack on atheist eliminationism.

[ZMiles]

And for a rebuttal to that hateful, Christian-dominionist nonsense, see: http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/02/14/poll-harder-so-religion-can-reassure-itself-of-its-relevance

The writer explicit demands that the European constitution include sectarian endorsements of certain religions. It's anti-atheist in the extreme (and anti-all other religions besides).

But it does provide another example of asserting that we atheists are so 'militant' when we want to, y'know, keep government from endorsing a state religion.

[Froborr]

How to Spot a Troll (cross-posting to a couple of threads):

While it is never possible to completely confirm whether a given commenter is a troll, some warning signs do exist. I recommmend, during periods of high troll activity, to ignore comments that contain all or most of these warning signs, at least until successive comments by the same person indicate it was a legitimate attempt to engage:

1) You do not recognize the username.
2) The comment misinterprets the post or comment it is a response to in a seemingly obvious way, or is a non sequitur.
3) The comment uses "buzz words"--emotionally charged words or phrases we use frequently in this community that are not in as frequent use in the general lexicon, but applied in such a way as to suggest the commenter does not understand that the terms have an actual meaning beyond the emotional charge.
4) The comment references the topic of a previous thread that was subject to trolling.
5) Comments that match warning sides 1-4 appear from different commenters in multiple threads in a short period of time.

[The Board Administration Team]

Any discussion of Greta Christina or the Froborr piece should be moved to the "Managing the Discussion" thread.