World politics, and racism in fandom.

[bubosquared]

So, yeah, the Israel-Palestina conflict is still in full force, and now there's riots in Northern Ireland again. Sigh.

Dear people sitting next to me on the train,

I understand you feel the need to sprout of your opinions on world politics. I understand that most people don't have the inclination, time, or willingness to make the effort, to read up on the often incredibly long historical background of these conflict. I am a history freak, and a research nut, and have been brought up to research and back up my arguments, especially in politics.

However. If you're not going to even bother to read the fucking newspaper and form an opinion that is not a blanket statement about either of the sides in these conflicts, if you're going to sit there and say that the IRA should turn in all their weapons without any guarantee of NI rejoining the Irish Republic (which, btw, is why they took up arms again in the late sixties in the first place -- the British governement had promised to work towards re-unifying them and then did zip for fourty years!), that the Palestinians should just should disarm, shut up, and move out of Israel (disregarding the fact that it was originally their fucking country, and that Sharon has been deliberately and knowingly violating just about every treaty his predecessors worked on), if you then ask me what I think about it, then I'm going to tell you. And I'm going to use lots of four-syllable words; I'm going to be careful and precise and rational in what I'm saying, and I'm going to look at both sides of the story.

And if you don't like that, you can go stuff yourself, instead of giving me that "stupid chit, what do you know about it?" look.

Sincerely,

Furious.

Also! Interesting discussion to be had here. Go. Read. Now! I'll wait.

Okay, if you're back, I'd like to just add my plea for non-white slash characters to witchqueen's. I know, I know, I'm telling you to do as I say, not as I do, here. But due to the nature of my fandoms, it's hard to even find an non-white person to slash, much as I'd want to. Because I love interracial slash. It's a kink, for the visual of contrasting skin.

(Aside: I often worry if my non-white characters come off as "token blacks/asians" in my non-fanfic stories. I don't mean for them to be. I don't sit down and think "Hm, I need a non-white character," just like I don't sit down and think "Hm, I need another female," because my characters just come to me as they are. And often, they're not white. I didn't figure out until halfway through Here and Now that Jesse's Asian, so it doesn't feel "token non-white"ish to me, but. Blah.)

Anyhat. For those of you looking for suggestions:

The Crying Game -- Jody/Fergus.

Star Wars -- Lando Calrissian/Han Solo. (Please, people, for the love of god, they vibed so hard I vibed off the sofa!) QG/Mace.

Red Dwarf -- Lister/Rimmer. (ONSCREEN KISS! How easy must it get?)

Space: Above and Beyond -- Paul Wang/Elroy EL. Because, woa. Also, Vanessa Damphousse/Shane Vansen. Sigh. My f/f slash OTP!

RPS: Justin/Nelly. Eminem/Dr Dre. (Dude, that's almost canon!). Dre/Snoop Dogg! (Would pay for this.) And someone ought to slash Coolio. (This could also fall under the S:AaB heading, since he played a guest role in that.)

Or, you know. Suggest a bunny, and I might write it. Lord knows one more won't make a difference.

Comments

[meimi.livejournal.com]

Oh interracial... that's kinda hard to pull off in anime. Other than Utena, which is officially interracial anyway, there aren't many characters of different racial backgrounds. The Japanese tend to like drawing caucasians and that's it. Ah well.

On the other points, you're quite right. A lot of people don't care to see the other side (I'm guilty of this in certain areas) and I think this ignorance actually help these conflicts to keep going. And you're also right about the media, they only go one way with any specific subject and whatever that is is determined by the level of sensationalism and what is the most popular outlook of the masses at the time. I really dislike the news because of this.

Re:

[bubosquared.livejournal.com]

Oh interracial... that's kinda hard to pull off in anime. Other than Utena, which is officially interracial anyway, there aren't many characters of different racial backgrounds. The Japanese tend to like drawing caucasians and that's it. Ah well.

Yeah, that's something I've noticed, too. (I'm trying to draw the characters from my non-fanfic 'verse, but since one of them is asian, I'm having trouble finding examples. :/)

On the other points, you're quite right. A lot of people don't care to see the other side (I'm guilty of this in certain areas) and I think this ignorance actually help these conflicts to keep going. And you're also right about the media, they only go one way with any specific subject and whatever that is is determined by the level of sensationalism and what is the most popular outlook of the masses at the time. I really dislike the news because of this.

*nod* Even here, that's case, and our (popular) media tends to be much more varied in opinions than the ones in America (that I've seen) -- I think because, being a smaller country, you can only have so many newspaperes of one leaning (conservative/liberal/whatever) without saturating the market, so going along with the "mainstream" wouldn't actually get you more money. Er, </tangent> :)