ergi

You know its really annoying that this is the Latina Barbie, Theresa (whom I adoredddd as a kid when she came out bc Latina dolls were so hard to come by back then)
And she is literally like one shade darker than white Barbie, even her hair is a light-med brown it used to be dark brown/soft black

I mean she used to look like this when I was a kid

and I’m actually looking for a browner Barbie for a friend’s daughter who is six and is already hating her complexion and being told shit by other precious white children who Just Don’t Know Any Better™ it would have been perfect bc this little girl is in ballet right now and i’m just really angry and upset to discover this

…and now people are calling me racist because I dislike the 2009 Uhura.

glamaphonic:

timeofthedecade:

pympinparticles:

kiransingh:

timeofthedecade:

I can’t win.

Here’s what I posted in response to some anon hate earlier about why I dislike the new Uhura. Enjoy.

Abrams had a chance to do something special with Uhura. Throughout the original series, she commanded respect without needing to put anyone down. She had her own voice - she was independent and strong-willed. Sure, she sometimes flirted, but it was always for fun or to get something she needed (such as in the Mirror, Mirror episode). When she flirted with Spock in the first season, it was quickly followed up with her criticizing him for not reacting to Kirk’s possible injury or death. She had her priorities straight.

Enter Abrams. It seems he saw that one episode and thought, “well, let’s modernize that 30 seconds of Uhura right there.” And he did so poorly. He introduced her not as a character, but as a body. Kirk came into a bar and lusted after her. A fight started because he and a number of other men wanted to sleep with her. She does nothing to prevent this.

Later, she strips to her underwear for no particular reason before chasing Kirk from her room. She then proceeds to blackmail Spock into letting her onto the Enterprise (because she feels entitled to it), where the only useful thing she does is distinguish between Vulcan and Romulan and reference a transmission she overheard - but only when prompted by Kirk.

She makes out with Spock after the death of his mother, when he’s vulnerable and doesn’t need emotions being thrown his way (hello? Touch telepath, anyone?). Then she makes out with him again before he infiltrates the enemy ship - in front of the entire command team - and lets it be known that she is emotionally compromised as well. She’ll be monitoring his frequency - but who else’s?

She’s a shell of the Uhura I grew up loving. She literally blackmails her way onto the Enterprise by basically threatening Spock with letting people higher up know they’ve been having an unprofessional liaison against regs. She serves no purpose but to hammer a wedge between members of the crew, and when she’s useful it’s only at the behest of a male crew member.

I live for characters like Zoe or Kaylee from Firefly, or characters such as Captain Janeway or B’elanna Torres from Voyager. I love women in science fiction - but they have to be done right. If a character is created for no purpose other than to be a female character, I’m not going to support her. If her sexuality is the most important thing about her, I’ll probably dislike her. And if I find she doesn’t meet my standards, I’ll almost definitely complain.

I’m not a misogynist because I don’t like certain fictional women. That just makes me a person with opinions.

I’d rather have no Uhura than an Uhura who is basically treated as a sex object, is only useful when men direct her, and who is so obsessed with appearances that she refuses a posting on a great ship (trivia fact! The ship she was originally assigned to in the movie was Kirk’s first assignment. They worked together and impressed enough people that Kirk was made Captain and Uhura was recognized as one of the best xenolinguists in the ‘fleet!) in favor of blackmailing someone she supposedly loves to get onto the newer one.

I loved the original Uhura. Thanks for assigning me the label of “racist” because I don’t like the new Uhura.

augh augh augh normally don’t do things like this? and I sure as shit can’t articulate my emotions on this so this will probably make no sense but I disagree with you in almost every way on how you’ve interpreted Uhura’s actions in the movie. but I probably could have scrolled past it (sorry Adam) were it not for one thing

“I’d rather have no Uhura than an Uhura…”

WHAT

NO

NO NO NO NO NO

DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT UHURA IS

DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT HER SIGNIFICANCE IS

The way Uhura was portrayed MAY have some slightly problematic moments but ERASING HER COMPLETELY IS NOT EVEN CLOSE TO A GOOD SOLUTION

Better people than me can articulate this, and I direct you to this post that explains in a MUCH BETTER WAY than I can what was great about Uhura’s role in the 2009 movie. Nichelle Nichols’s original casting was groundbreaking and revolutionary but she would NEVER have been the love interest in ANY CAPACITY. The famous kiss between her and Kirk only squeaked by because is was under mind-control. As the author in that link says…

UHURA IS NOT A WHITE GIRL

and understanding that makes all the difference when looking at what they did with her in Star Trek ok

alright rant over you can all yell at me now

i’m just gonna

reblog this again because you’re right I shouldn’t have just gone along with what this was saying

So, basically, we’re saying that because Uhura’s black and because, as a black girl, she is fucking Spock, that excuses her from having to have a characterization that is actually more than just “the girl fucking Spock, and by the way she knows a lot about xenolinguistics, but let’s mostly ignore that because she’s hot”?

We’re saying that a black female character is allowed to be selfish and over-sexualized and act only at the behest of a male character (except when it comes to protecting her own interests) strictly because she is black and not a one-time character?

We’re saying that all my opinions - including the part where I think having her there strictly as the sexy female character with poor characterization is a bad thing - are invalid because she’s an established black character and she’s fucking Spock?

Yep, I can’t win here.

WELL SINCE THIS IS ESSENTIALLY A REPLY TO MY POST (THE ONE LINKED) FINE:

I’m saying that your objections to her are total bullshit based primarily on blatantly biased and inaccurate representations of what happened in the movie that clearly betray the completely fucking racist and misogynistic ideas kicking around in your head that caused you to make them.

»He introduced her not as a character, but as a body. Kirk came into a bar and lusted after her.«

No, she’s introduced as a charismatic and attractive woman who easily brushes off Kirk’s flirtation and is out having a good time with her friends.

»A fight started because he and a number of other men wanted to sleep with her. She does nothing to prevent this.«

So, when some dudes want to get into a fight about her even though she first tells them she’s fine and then screams at them to stop, it’s her fault? I see.

»Later, she strips to her underwear for no particular reason before chasing Kirk from her room.«

You mean that time she went into her room to change clothes and the film demonstrated that Kirk is a creeper with a thing for her by having him watch from under the bed and in which there is one brief shot of her undressing and then the rest of the scene is bust up while she’s wearing a plain, conservative bra?

»She then proceeds to blackmail Spock into letting her onto the Enterprise (because she feels entitled to it)«

Are you SHITTING me?

Spock assigns her to a ship besides the BEST ship, a posting she has EARNED by being one of the BEST students, because he’s worried about the APPEARANCE of favoritism that might cast their relationship in a poor light. Uhura lists her credentials and demands her proper assignment. He agrees.

Where the FUCK do you find blackmail in that? The only one who even so much as alludes to their relationship in that conversation is Spock.

Stop making shit up to support your gross assertions.

»where the only useful thing she does is distinguish between Vulcan and Romulan and reference a transmission she overheard«

Oh, you mean the thing that is integral to and sets in motion the plot of the whole movie?

Also, I know this won’t be a useful distinction for you because you’re an asshole fauxminist with a bullshit criteria for Strong Female Character that’s inextricably locked up in your own grossness, but there’s a difference between a female character not being given much to do because a MOVIE is sexist and the female character herself being inherently sexist.

»She makes out with Spock after the death of his mother, when he’s vulnerable and doesn’t need emotions being thrown his way (hello? Touch telepath, anyone?). Then she makes out with him again before he infiltrates the enemy ship - in front of the entire command team - and lets it be known that she is emotionally compromised as well. She’ll be monitoring his frequency - but who else’s?«

YES, how I missed this gross ass, sexist, racist insinuation that Uhura was FORCING her UNWANTED ATTENTIONS on Spock AGAINST HIS WILL despite his explicit, visible, empirical reciprocation. Fuck you.

Though I will say OBVIOUSLY SHE’S GOING TO LET KIRK DIE BY NEGLECT is a brand new turd.

»She serves no purpose but to hammer a wedge between members of the crew,«

I don’t even know what the FUCK this is supposed to mean and I’m tired of even trying to parse your delusions.

»I’m not a misogynist because I don’t like certain fictional women. That just makes me a person with opinions.«

No you’re a misogynist because your reasons for not liking certain fictional women are based on obviously sexist standards and expressed in a misogynistic way.

»I’d rather have no Uhura than an Uhura who is basically treated as a sex object, is only useful when men direct her, and who is so obsessed with appearances that she refuses a posting on a great ship (trivia fact! The ship she was originally assigned to in the movie was Kirk’s first assignment. They worked together and impressed enough people that Kirk was made Captain and Uhura was recognized as one of the best xenolinguists in the ‘fleet!) in favor of blackmailing someone she supposedly loves to get onto the newer one.«

And you conclude by repeating more total bullshit about Uhura’s role in the movie while taking it upon yourself to decide that one of the most prominent black female characters in sci-fi should just be erased because you’ve invented some nonsense standards and misconstrued everything about her character and liked it better back when she could barely get a line.

Shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down. People have been saying this garbage literally for three years and it is still bullshit and it’s harmful.

So, no you can’t “win” until you say something that makes some damned sense.

BOOM
 

(via amazonpoodle)

Florida Adopts Academic Achievement Standards Based On Race, Ethnicity, Echoes Virginia

Just a few weeks after a similar move by Virginia was met with controversy, Florida has also adopted achievement standards based on race and ethnicity.

Approved this week by the Florida Board of Education, the new race-based standards affect all 2.6 million students that attend the state’s 3,629 public schools. The mandate stipulates that by 2018, 90 percent of Asian students, 88 percent of white students, 81 percent of Hispanic students and 74 percent of black students are to be reading at or above grade level. The state also wants 86 percent of white students, 92 percent of Asians, 80 percent of Hispanics and 74 percent of blacks to be at or above their math grade level, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

The new goals are required under Florida’s waiver from No Child Left Behind. Many expressed skepticism over the race-based targets.

“To expect less from one demographic and more from another is just a little off-base,” Juan Lopez, magnet coordinator at John F. Kennedy Middle School in Riviera Beach, told the Palm Beach Post. The school’s black student population is about 88 percent. “Our kids, although they come from different socioeconomic backgrounds, they still have the ability to learn. To dumb down the expectations for one group, that seems a little unfair.”

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush previously said such measures would send a “devastating message” that black and Hispanic students weren’t as capable as others. Palm Beach County School Board Vice-Chair Debra Robinson tells the Post that she’s “somewhere between complete and utter disgust and anger and disappointment with humanity.”

Florida officials, however, say the opposite, noting that the standards are meant to acknowledge current performance and make a plan for improvement.

According to author and presidential professor emeritus at UCLA Jeannie Oakes,eliminating traditional tracking methods that measure performance based on race is essential to facilitating comparable success among different races.

“Once we put students in groups, we give them very different opportunities to learn — with strong patterns of inequality across teachers, experience, and competence,” Oakes says. “There was this pervasive view that Latino and African American kids can’t measure up in a way that more affluent or white kids can and we can’t do anything about it.”

In addition to race, the new achievement standards in Florida also set goals for children with disabilities and those still learning English, in addition to those who come from low-income households.

(Source: The Huffington Post)

HEY J.K. R-DOGGS IMMA LET YOU FINISH BUT I GOT SOME REAL PROBLEMS WITH THE APPROPRIATION OF RACIAL PERSECUTION AND SUBTLE AND UNFORTUNATE THEMES OF CULTURAL ASSIMILATION IN YOUR BOOKS

immortal-sunlight-chaos-heart:

vorpalsnatcher:

In my perpetual and obsessive hunt for anyone who might somehow, somewhere, not be agreeing completely with everything that I have ever said, I’ve noted some skepticism vis-a-vis assmilation, its presence in the Harry Potter series, and its place in the majestic annals of my little brown childhood as a book about racism with eight fucking people of color present in all of its majestic 4195 pages.

So let me elaborate.

The themes of racism, assimilation, and cultural erasure in Harry Potter are a massive fucking problem, and unlike, say, more than eight PoC,^[1] they are present. They are constant. And they are obvious. In book one Hermione proudly states her muggle heritage as the very first thing about her, not even giving out her name before saying at an enorous speed , “Nobody in my family’s magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter…” By book seven the name she gives out is somebody else’s. By book seven, and a long time before that, she doesn’t dare to be herself.

It’s very obvious to anyone who has ever glanced at the spine of one of these books that wizards do not like muggles. Even by the standards of the good and the kind, they are at best a subject of condescending fascination, and at worst a greedy^[2], gullible population of useless man-babies^[3].

Fig. 1: The Grizzly Man of magical assholes.

Even the word itself seems to have the ring of a racial epithet; it’s nearly always use in a derogatory manner, and “blood status” is dictated by being as genetically far from muggles as possible. Magical blood is desirable blood, and anyone without it is worthless no matter how they got that way.

Let’s talk about squibs. Another word one step away from a slur, squibs are just as unwelcome in the wizarding world as muggles are. Their opinions count for nothing, they are a subject of unthinkable shame^[4] and ridicule, and are politely encouraged to keep the fuck out of this whole magic thing altogether. While “mudbloods”^[5] fill the roll of the tragic mulatto, squibs are expected to assimilate twice as much, and not even with the world they were born into. You either fit into their world or you get the hell out of it.

J.K. Rowling is an intelligent woman. A generous woman. A woman wise to the cruelty and unfairness of the world around her. A woman for whom I have a single, simple question.

Are wizards supposed to be dicks?

It’s a given that muggles aren’t welcome in the wizarding world. Okay. Fine. Putting that obvious hurricane of bullshit, let’s talk about the innumberable mountains of condsecention, exclusion, and balls out, unabashed, right-up-in-your-muddy-little-faces “blood supremecy”^[6] decorating my entire goddamn childhood.

Fig. 2: This has nothing to do with white supremecy.

— Arthur’s Weasley’s fascination with muggles, as if they are something to be studied rather than humans to interact with on an equal social level and thus reducing them entirely to the differences between his culture and theirs^[7]. This mirrors with painful clarity attitudes of unthinkably stupid white people toward other cultures, their sad tendency to appropiate and wonder at the quaint/mysterious/socially uncceptable traditions of these cultures, and their ridiculous savior complexes^[8]

Fig. 3: A powerful argument on the subject of brown people not knowing what computers are.

— refusal, even by the weasleys^[9] to adopt, acknowlege, or learn from muggle technology including various medical proceedures like chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants^[10], electricity, guns^[11], computers, television, recording devices such as ipods or cds or casette tapes or 8 tracks or vynil records, airplanes^[12], any beverage besides alcohol, weaker alcohol, or fucking pumpkin juice^[13], forensic science, space shuttles, internal medicine, cars¹⁴, plastic, lined paper and fucking pencils.

— also why do they have quills is she saying that wizards invented pens?

Fig. 4: Sorcery

— why do they have toilets?

Fig. 5: Also sorcery

— if wizards did invent pens/toilets then a), why aren’t their toilets magic, b), they are shit at hiding pens and toilets from us, and c), they are also shit at making pens because we are clearly way the fuck ahead of the vis-a-vis pen-related technological advancements

— are there just no wizard artists because how the fuck does anyone draw without a pencil?

— their dickish refusal to share their hugely benificial technology with muggles, including the ablity to reattach amputated limbs and reverse paralysis, the ability to repair and even regrow broken bones, their ability heal gigantic life threatening lacerations that would kill a muggle in minutes, their ability to generate unlimited clean energy out of fuck nowhere, vechicles which run on fucking nothing and so would solve the oil crisis and the two fucking wars we’re in, mental magic which if used voluntarily likely be extremely useful as a psychiatric treatment

— combining the technological efforts of wizards and muggles would likely advance human society as a whole by literally hundreds of years.

— but wizards just won’t fucking do it

— the only reasoning ever given for any of this is “oh nooooo but muggles would be jeeeeealous”^[15] and “bluh bluh bluh muggle shit doesn’t work when things are ~magic~” which a) is obviously total bullshit because how the fuck do they work radios or cars or cash registers, it’s not like they could even have like an old timey cash register with no wiring or other electric aspects because they haven’t even figured out how a fucking type writer works, they don’t even have fucking /tellegrams/, b) why is there an entire department of the ministry devoted to the confiscation of misused “muggle artifacts”^[16] if none of them fucking work, c) once again if they don’t work then why is it illegal to have them. Even taking that to the most logical conclusion, that they don’t want muggles getting ahold of them, why it okay to have things like magic wizard feather pens, a mail service concisisting entirely of fucking owls (by which logic there are birds carrying all of the packages you ever send anywhere, and while something like a rememberall or a box of acidic slug pus might go unnoticed, people are probably going to wonder what’s up with the fucking broomsticks and christmas presents and anything bigger than a loaf of bread.

And further still down the breadcrumb path of douchery, we have out tragic mulattos themselves. I’m not sure excatly how anyone could possibly be unclear as to how this reflects racism and its effects on its victims; “mudbloods” (otherwise referred to as the scum atop the pure, unsoiled gene pond) are insulted, persecuted, and eventually rounded up and presumably disposed of. ^[17]

Fig. 6: This has nothing to do with the holocaust.

Oh sure, you can argure that it’s just because the people who do those things are dicks, except for the part where pretty much everyone does them. There are laws to fuck mudbloods over. There are words to fuck mudbloods over ^[18]. There are microaggressions and prejudices and the KKK and Wizard. Fucking. Hitler. The themes of tolerence come straight out of Joanne NMN Rowling’s beautiful British mouth, and yet she wasn’t tolerant enough to put more than eight minor character’s worth of brownness in four. Thousand. Pages.

I don’t believe that J.K. Rowling is a racist, but you tell me if that’s not. You tell me if that’s approriative as fuck. You tell me that’s not taking the past atrocities and a present system of opression so ingrained in the public mind that it’s practically invisible. You get up out of your swivel chair, look your keyboard in the eye and tell me that that is not a white woman looking down at a world of murder and persecution and violation and being wiped off the face of the fucking earth which she will never, ever experience or understand, and deciding it would be really great story if it were told by other people who will never experience or understand it. You stare right into your monitor and you tell yourself that tolerance can be taught without the presence of the people you’re supposed to be tolerating. You take a look at us and tell yourself that that’s okay.

Harry Potter taught me a lot of things, but what it didn’t teach me was to stop hating every drop of muddy blood in my body. What it taught me was to hate it more. What it taught me was that every step I took toward that sloppy, dirty half of myself was a step away from being accepted. From being worthwhile. From being loved.

Careful the things you say, Ms. Rowling. Children will listen.

——

Footnotes
——

1. Dean Thomas, Cho Chang, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Blaise Zabini, Lee Jordan, Angelina Johnson, and the Patil twins, all of whom play no significant part in the main plot and would make no significant difference if removed from it entirely.

2. SS, Amer. Ed., pg 65:

“‘But what does a Ministry of Magic do?’”
“‘Well, their main job is to keep it from Muggles that there’s still witches an’ wizards up an’ down the country.’”
“‘Why?’”
“‘Why? Blimey, Harry, everyone’d be wantin’ magic solutions to their problems. Nah, we’re best left alone.’”

Wizards want magic solutions = the natural order. Muggles want magic solutions = greedy little shits.

3. CoS, Amer. Ed, pg 40:

“Ron’s school spellbooks were stacked untidily in a corner, next to a pile of comics that all seemed to feature ‘The Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle’.”

4. SS, Amer. Ed., pg 99

“‘Are all your family wizards?’ asked Harry, who found Ron just as interesting as Ron found him.
‘Er — yes, I think so,’ said Ron. ‘I think Mom’s got a second-cousin who’s an accountant, but we never talk about him.’”

5. Another term which is wildly easy to connect to real world racism, as it not only flung at persons of undesireable genetic origins but contains an actual word denoting something brown, filthly, and valueless.

6. Come on that one’s not even an allegory.

7. See also: Every line that Arthur Weasley ever has.

8. See also: Everything that Harry Potter ever does.

9. Ootp, Amer. Ed., pg 507:

“‘Well…well, I don’t now whether you know what — what stitches are?’
‘It sounds as though you’ve been trying to sew your skin back together,” said Mrs. Weasley with a snort of mirthless laughter, ‘but even you, Arthur, wouldn’t be that stupid — ‘
‘I fancy a cup of tea too,’ said Harry, jumping to his feet.
Hermione, Ron, and Ginny almost sprinted to the door with him. As it swung closed behind them, they heard Mrs. Weasley shriek, ‘WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT’S THE GENERAL IDEA?”

10. Unless wizards have a way to either not get or actually fucking CURE CANCER in which case holy fucking god they are unbelieveably shitty people and also as I’ve pointed implies that they view muggles in the same way muggles veiw animals, ie, basically no one anywhere is going to give a dog chemotherapy or a gerbil a heart transplant or administer AZT to a parakeet, and when there are treatments for anything from a gangrenous infection to encephilitus to a broken fucking bone people will like 80% of the time let the thing fucking die over paying for them
.
11. Which J.Kizzle R-Boss has canonically stated trump a wand 100% of the time and could therefore be used to shoot Voldemort in the fucking face and end every last turd of this shit twenty years ago.

12. No. Apparition does not count. It is NOT useful over long distances, hence portkeys and so on which also must be basically useless in comparison because even if you did have one of those freaky Mary Poppins bags Hermione has in DH (which with Hermione being Hermione is presumably a fairly tricky spell that most people would have a hard time pulling off) and didn’t have to somehow try to get all your luggage to portkey around with you, if this is how people get around and by what we have to go on in GoF does not appear to cost any money, why is it that the Weasleys can never ever afford to go on vacation except when they win 1000 galleons in PoA? Speaking from 22 years of experience in being pretty goddamn poor, the reason my family hasn’t taken a vacation since I was five and someone else paid for it is air fare. They really, really fuck you on air fare. And even with the need for accomidations for their ridiculous litter of offspring, at least two of said litter have being employed outside of the U.K. for the entirety of the series, with Percy being a relentless douche from book 3 onward, leaving between seven and six Weasleys rather than nine. So unless they burned that tent in GoF down afterward, I’m pretty sure they don’t get around by portkey.

13. Which I will never EVER believe would not taste like something you licked out of the bottom of a dumpster.

14. Which are CLEARLY more convenient than wizarding travel as the ministry itself breaks the laws restricting them from exploring the benifits of muggle technology when ever the fuck they feel like it.

15. Someone please make me a “wizard tears” gif.

16. Another ridiculously condescending term. WE’RE RIGHT THE FUCK HERE YOU TOOLS THOSE AREN’T ARTIFACTS THAT’S JUST OUR SHIT.

17. DH, Amer. Ed., pg. 1 -759.

18. It’s mudblood, by the way.

brilliant, post is brilliant.

(via moniquill)