Citizens in Puerto Rico laid shoes at the San Juan capitol to represent lost loved ones not counted in the official government death toll. The number is estimated to be 4,645, the official US government number is 64.
Browsing the Shuri tag on tumblr is the most fascinating thing for me, because I have watched virtually all of the black female characters I love either be ignored or despised.
So, watching the rare rise of a character like Shuri and seeing how fandom interacts and imagines a black girl it actually deems “lovable”?
…It is as fascinating as it is revealing. The righteous anger at even the smallest hints that she could experience love or desire. I even read a post from someone who claimed to be triggered at the possibility that Shuri could be crass or cuss.
Checking that tag provides a nice little window into how society interrogates and limits a young black girl even when deemed acceptable/beloved as originally presented in-character. …And it’s nothing new.
Some background on where my head on this is…
Back in the 1980′s there were two popular young black characters on TV whose popularity among white audiences and the qualities they zeroed in on, remind me a lot of how white fandom tends to package it’s “love and protection” of Shuri. Those characters are Arnold and Webster on the TV shows Different Strokes and Webster.
In those shows, the black characters’ main traits were sassiness, cleverness, cuteness, and quippiness. They had catchphrases that white audiences loved, they were intelligent and often they put white characters in their place or taught them something, but in the end, they were ultimately under the care and control of white families and certain boundaries were never crossed.
It always safe.
This “safety” was embodied by the neutering of the breadth and depth of emotion and experiences these characters got to have on their shows. Everything was limited to a child-like context. It was a method of whiteness protecting itself from these characters, but framed as protecting these black kids (sound familiar?). It’s a stellar example of the often passive-aggressive “polite” racism of whiteness, a common thread made so by their need to avoid getting that racist label; to keep that veneer of benevolence, even from acknowledgement within their own selves.
It was such an important factor in these characters’ popularity, whether subconsciously or with that intent, that two actors with dwarfism portrayed these characters. Thus, these characters never aged. They were forever dolls under the subordinate care of whiteness. Limited to funny quips, sweet hugs, a forever cute exterior, and safe sass. These shows never had to deal with the full complexities wrapped up in inevitable growth and maturity. There was no puberty, no real anger nor desire, just faux anger, canned audience laughter reactions, and childlike crushes.
“What you talkin’ bout, Willis?” was the “WHAT ARE THOSE?!” of that day and age.
In a nutshell, they never had to deal with these characters’ growth into full experiences humanity has to offer. So, I’m saying that the condition of white fandom’s rare love and embrace of a black girl is to not be fully human.
So many posts and comments about Shuri reflect a strange preemptive insistence that anything that strains beyond a child-like view of her somehow diminishes her. When it actuality that child-like view just provides a safe context for them to envision her.
Shuri is most popularly seen as a giddy, clever teen, who smiles a lot and roasts her brother. …But she’s more than that. She’s next in line for the throne and thus has been trained to rule the most advanced country on the planet(!). She is responsible for the design of the entire technological infrastructure of Wakanda. Do not mistake a fun-loving personality or being a typical sibling for a lack of maturity or responsibility, when the situation calls for it.
Mind you, all of this was demonstrated in Black Panther. She guided Ross to shoot down weapons carriers (with people inside, driving them) while on the battlefield herself, fighting for her life. She had enough presence of mind to take the other suit for her own use, since she believed her brother dead.
I do believe this character being portrayed by actress who is small-framed, styled semi-androgynously out-of-character, and dark-skinned, are qualities that I believe make it easier for fandom to keep her “safe” in their eyes. …Keep her childlike and emotionally neutered. Since all of these qualities in the same person, have been rare to non-existent representation-wise in mainstream pop culture up to now.
The conditions for their love, which will turn sour on a dime (I’m already seeing signs of that in the tag) is that she remains that meme they fell in love with.
Remain the wide-eyed innocent doll they perceive with jokey/assist/~*friend*~ interactions with the rest of the MCU. They want to see her talk to Tony, Bruce, and Peter, but don’t be too mean or too smart! ~*They are equals. :))))*~
This passive-aggressive preciousness with which especially white female fandom handles Shuri, the insistent eye-twitchy flinch of her being “A CHILD!” is not “love”, it’s protecting themselves from the emotional distance they would feel, if she were a woman.
I can predict how fandom’s “love” will shift as the character of Shuri evolves and grows over time, given Wanda who also started as a teen in her first appearance in the MCU, and it won’t be pretty.
…But I hope that with some active self-interrogation, perhaps more people will question the real place their so-called protective limits come from.
One of these days I’m going to write a YA novel and call it “Most Girls”.
It could be about a vampire who was turned in her late teens and always regretted never finishing her education formally and well, she’s too young looking for college but she could get a high school diploma, right? Something to hang up in the old tomb sweet tomb. So she talks her older looking vampire friends into pretending to be her parents and whacky hijinks ensue as she struggles to fit in and be like most girls but hilariously keeps getting told she’s not like most girls by everyone she meets, much to her annoyance.
“You know,“ he says inching closer beside me on the rooftop, the light of the moon casting an unearthly silver glow on the leaves and making his eyes shine all the brighter, “you’re not like most girls.”
I dip my head to hide my smile. They always scream so much when they see the fangs.
“No,” I agree inching away from him again, “I’m not.”
But maybe just for once, I think, I’d like to be…
Joy I’m fucking suing you for typing at verbatim every Neopets Vampire roleplay I took part in in 2003 and making me stare into my own soul
This is unrealistic because if a literal child walked into my university lecture I’d be like sure you probably belong here and would never question it. She could totally make it in college
Book two can be her realizing that to professors everyone looks like they’re 12 so enrolls in community college with her shiny new diploma.
Faux-vampire-mom-and-dad show up at graduation looking like if you crossed 50s nostalgia with the Addams family and cheering loudly for everyone, but especially for those who have no one else to cheer for them.
For them they cheer the loudest.
Because sometimes a family can be you, your fake spouse, your immortal undead daughter and the humans they adopt along the way.
Can Faux-vampire-mom-and-dad be younger than their immortal undead daughter?
Absolutely. There’s a hundred years difference at least. Clara and Arthur just happen to look like they’re in their late 30s.
When and where can I support this?
If you’re really asking, I have a Patreon and Ko-fi where people can support my blog or pre-order my upcoming work of pledge for perks. It helps me to keep the lights on and pay for my medical expenses of which there are many and often not covered by my insurance. It also means I don’t have to take on extra editing work to stay above water, and can focus on creating stories for you guys.
I will eventually have my own author webpage and store where you can find everything I do and buy directly from me, but in the meantime this is my main means of supporting myself and it’s always greatly appreciated. Never expected, but appreciated ❤
Amazon will also be a thing eventually but only as my distributor. If they think for one second I’m giving them printing rights they can whistle for it.
“vampires, werewolves, and all manor of creatures”
Is that a pun?
It was, thank you for noticing and not assuming it was a typo :p
With regards to the “no, she wouldn’t look to young for college” comment, most first-year undergrads are in their “late teens” anyway; and there was a girl in my residence who we all initially thought was eleven or twelve (turned out she was just short), but she was in a music program so everyone just shrugged and went “maybe she’s a prodigy?”
i don’t use this website to talk about what happens in my country (nicaragua) but right now everything is upside down, Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo (president and vicepresident) made some huge changes to our taxes because they used money from our social security and we couldn’t handle any more bs so we began this revolution pacifically, but now college students are getting killed by the police, the government is threatening many people just to get them to shut everyone up who is against them, they burned and destroyed many universities, almost burned a building while people were inside, hurt many elders and kids, censored many channels on national tv to manipulate information, i’m just-
WE ARE NOT EVEN BEING VIOLENT WE ARE JUST PROTESTING PACIFICALLY FOR OUR RIGHTS, PROTESTING BECAUSE WE’RE TIRED OF HAVING A GOVERNMENT THAT JUST TAKES ADVANTAGE OF THEIR POWER, THEY TOOK EVERYTHING FROM US, WE CAN’T TAKE ANY MORE INJUSTICES, WE WANT THEM TO LEAVE
WE ARE GETTING KILLED AND WE ARE SCARED BUT WE WANT TO BE HEARD, WE NEED THE WHOLE WORLD TO SCREAM WITH US
NOS ESTÁN MATANDO
POR FAVOR AYÚDENNOS A SER ESCUCHADOS
#SOSNICARAGUA
ok, we made it, Daniel Ortega canceled the changes on our taxes [April 22nd 2018], but these protests have changed their goal since they killed the first student, WE NEED ORTEGA AND MURILLO TO LEAVE THE COUNTRY
like, the police keeps killing people, college students are still the principal target, channels on national tv are still censored and the ones that aren’t manipulate information to make the government and their sympathizers look like they are the victim in this situation
we’re living in a constant fear and Ortega keeps claiming that all he wants is peace and calls everyone against his regimen a “delinquent”
WE WANT FREEDOM, WE WANT EVERYONE TO KNOW THAT DANIEL ORTEGA IS A GENOCIDE DICTATOR
[May 12th 2018]
everything is getting worse, they are killing more and more people, incriminating innocent people for the murders, they are even creating chaos between us to make the ones that are fighting for freedom like they are vandals, they won’t let enter international organizations to investigate the crimes,,,
we think this is becoming a civil war, i’m really scared, i haven’t sleep well in days, i hope this won’t last long but i don’t know what’s going to happen now
please keep yourself informed about what’s going on, and pray for us
[May 26th 2018]
protests are still going strong, now farmers are blocking roads in sign of protest and it seems this really affects the government because they are trying to get rid of them by attacking those protecting the roads
by the time there are 300+ missing people and over than 75 deaths, the streets in the city are basically destroyed, the government is using a new strategy where the police (and we think that even soldiers) are dressing as civilians and killing every protester when they got the chance, there are motorcyclists intimidating people in the streets, you can be murdered just by carrying the national flag, over 30,000 people got fired the past few weeks, the economy is going down faster and faster each day, national tv channels are still manipulating information to make the protesters seem like they’re the ones killing and destroying everything thanks to the CIA (i know it’s stupid but that’s what they say), it’s a mess
Ortega-Murillo are still in denial about what’s going on in the country, they don’t wanna listen and don’t wanna quit, they still think that it’s just a few people against them but it’s actually like 90% of the nicaraguans that want them to leave, they call for peace in the morning and send their people to kill us in the night
everyone is tired and scared of what’s going to happen but we still got a piece of hope in our hearts, please pray for nicaragua and don’t leave us alone
PLEASE REBLOG
[May 28th 2018 @ 12:30pm]
POLICE OFFICERS JUST ATTACKED MY UNIVERSITY AND THEY ARE SHOOTING EVERY CIVILIAN IN THE STREETS I’M CRYINF I’M SCARED IT’S ALL OVER THE NEWS
[May 30th 2018]
TODAY IS MOTHER’S DAY AND THERE WAS THIS HUGE MASSIVE MARCH TO HONOR THOSE MOTHERS WHO LOST THEIR CHILDREN DURING THE PAST 42 DAYS AND THE GOVERNMENT SENT SNIPERS TO SHOOT EVERYONE, THERE WERE KIDS, ADULTS AND ELDERLY PEOPLE NOW THERE ARE MANY INJURES AND SOME ARE DEAD 😦
THIS IS HORRIBLE, GUYS
PLEASE LET THE WORLD KNOW HOW SICK ARE DANIEL ORTEGA AND ROSARIO MURILLO
THEY PRAY FOR PEACE AND KILL EVERYONE AGAINST THEM
Hairdresser: We’re going to have to use a color remover to take out the blue pigment, then apply more pigment to allow for the proteins in the hair to adhere to it. Then possibly mix three different types of toners to reach the goal of your natural hair color.
Hairdresser: pretty simple
Me: this is chemistry
Hairdresser: yeah, but people don’t like when we talk that way
Hairdresser: so you’re a mortician?
Me: apprentice
Hairdresser: do you know why formaldehyde is used in clothing?
Me: I didn’t know that was a thing
Hairdresser: I think it’s due to the preserving qualities? But I don’t think that’s right.
Me: It’s not just a preservative, it’s also a disinfectant ‘cause it destroys bacteria as well as their food supply. It’s also a dehydrator.
Hairdresser: why not just use alcohol?
Me: good question. Formaldehyde is super cheap, so probably to cut costs
Hairdresser: is it really a carcinogen?
Me: yeah, I’m going to have so much cancer
Hairdresser: so you’re going natural to work at a funeral home?
Me: yeah
Hairdresser: while still in school?
Me: well we work in the funeral homes so we have uuuuh … experience with cases
Hairdresser: you can just say bodies it’s fine
Me: oh thank god
Five Minutes Later
Me: yeah so we don’t do autopsies it’s one of my pet peeves
Hairdresser: what if someone wakes up while you’re embalming them?
Me: there’s a huge difference between a living body and a dead one
second hairdresser: I think we should add more toner, but yeah I think rigor mortis would make it pretty obvious
Me: that and being in a fridge for a few days you will be dead by the time you get to us
Hairdresser: I think pumping them full of a carcinogen would help with that
General approximation of how my Russian ear heard this scene the first time (and it was perfect):
DESIRE!1!!1!!!
zh-rusty!
twzwelve!
intelligence seRRRRvice
f’yornace
nyain
kind-quality (also sounds like “benign” with odd ukrainian accent)
RTVUVRN TO MADALAND
wahn
thunderstorm wagon
EITHER “soldier” with honey-cute uwu pronunciation (he softens the “L” like a german would, but in russian softened consonants are used for baby-talk) OR, if broken in two words, “want some salt?”
Mooncustafer 