This week, the Office for National Statistics has added ready-made mashed potato to the UK’s official shopping basket, which it uses to measure inflation, and people are up in arms. Who buys a pre-chopped onion that costs three times as much as a whole one? How lazy do you have to be to choose a frozen omelette over a couple of eggs?
These kinds of convenience foods are an easy target. But for the 13.3 million people in Britain with disabilities – and those living with arthritis, chronic illness, recovering from injury or surgery, or undergoing cancer treatment – convenience foods aren’t just convenient: they are a lifeline.
This is an issue close to my heart. I’m a professional cook, but I also have a chronic pain condition, and there are occasions when I can’t even hold a knife. In times like those, I’m never going to opt for the impenetrable whole butternut squash over one that has already been diced for me.
So, I too received the “We’re not mad you reblogged Russian propagandists, we’re just disappointed” email from Tumblr. As per @copperbadge‘s suggestion, I searched for the posts by typing the usernames into “paxpinnae.tumblr.com/search/RussianTrollGoesHere” (Note that you have to have Tumblr search enabled in your profile to do this, but that’s a quick fix.)
Now, I’ve deleted all the posts, because better safe than inadvertently complicit in undermining American democracy, but for those who are interested, this is the quality content the Russian IRA was putting out:
That post with the Google results showing the Obamas as the President and First Lady and saying “reblog this it’s the last day they’re true.”
A post bitching about how Howard the Duck might be getting a(nother) Marvel movie before Kamala Khan, America Chavez, or Miles Morales saying “When Marvel would rather make a movie about a duck than a person of color.”
A post with a Twitter screenshot of a guy saying feminists don’t have loving dads and getting dragged for it.
A post about Imran Yousef, the marine vet bouncer at Pulse in Orlando who helped save people, which actually was a twofor on Russian trolls, with one reblogging the other to give an assist.
That post about Hillary Clinton’s interview where she says she keeps hot sauce in her back, which the troll framed as “admitting to pandering to black people.”
A post promoting Solomon’s Shield, an app that will give you your rights during a traffic stop and help you livestream the stop to Facebook and urging me to “OMG STOP POLICE BRUTALITY!!!!!”
A post about some A+ queer moments from Betty & Veronica with the caption “heteros explain this” that I’m actually really mad about deleting because it was GR8.
A post with a bumper sticker reading “Proud Parent of a Child who has Resisted His Teachers’ Attempts to Break His Spirit and Bend Him to the Will of His Corporate Masters” which I am also really mad that I had to delete.
There are a few trends I noticed as I went through the posts that I want to take a moment to highlight, for the sake of my own critical thinking skills as well as others’:
Most of these posts seemed to come from a standard Tumblr left-wing point of view… BUT:
Most of them ALSO promoted a defeatist attitude toward our current systems and cultures. “Why is no one talking about Imran Yousef?” “You know why.” “Just admit you don’t want equality for all”
The fundamental goal of the Russian propaganda machine is to undermine Americans’ faith in our political and cultural institutions. If everything is inherently terrible, how can we fix it? If both sides are equally bad and corrupt, then it’s better just to give up on government and try to live as best we can.
Which is an interesting take, but a few counterpoints:
No.
Fuck that.
American democracy has many problems, but the solution isn’t to give up; it’s to fight harder.
Change is slow and hard and yes, involves compromise, and doing a few things that you don’t like in the short term, and talking to people who you personally disagree with, and that’s okay! If you continually subject everything to a rigid test of moral purity, the world will always fail you, but if you approach things with an attitude that even people with whom you disagree can have valid points, you might find something good.
(I’m still mad about how good that Betty & Veronica post was. I mean, I know it was probably intended to undercut American culture somehow, but that thing was AMAZING.)
Part of the real punch to the guts here is that:
1) The things they point out aren’t *wrong*. We ARE a racist society. We ARE a a sexist society. We ARE a deeply hetero-normative society. Insert a justice problem, and it probably applies.
2) It’s super easy to agree with and promote the defeatist attitude because these are giant systemic problems it’s super easy to feel defeated by.
3) I fully expect to be hoodwinked by more such accounts in the future. Just look at how tumblr people and people of a certain age talk all fatalistic about the future, how we make our depression and low expectations for our lives into jokes. You can try to be more aware about WHO you’re reblogging, but you’re gonna make a mistake on that someday, not cause you’re an idiot, but cause it’s just that hard not to.
So what to do about it?
Do like Pax and use the tips from @copperbadge to delete the posts you’ve reblogged. Then, in the future, if you see a post that, per @paxpinnae‘s comments, takes a defeatist stance towards a real problem, by all means, reblog it. But add to the post – add a call to action. If it’s about trans bathroom bills, include a form letter for your state reps. Do something similar if it’s about lack of representation in the media – why not send emails to movie studios saying we want Miles Morales and Kamala Khan cause they’re fucking rad as hell and could totally bring in Black Panther $$$. If it’s about police brutality against black people, link to BLM fundraisers.
That way, you’re being civically engaged. You roll your eyes and feel sad about the ways in which our world is shit, but then you do something about it, even IF it seems small and useless. It’s still something, and then you’re maybe – hopefully – perhaps inspiring someone else to take incremental action along with you. And bonus, you’re undermining some asshole’s attempt to undermine you, so if nothing else, you’re getting spite points.
And that’s my thought. Time to do some research and gather rebloggable resources so I can do my best to put my money where my mouth is here.
I did not plan to mire myself this deeply in this whole event when I made An Humorous Post about being in league with Russian agitators, but it has led to some really awesome analysis that I wanted to share with everyone, so this is well worth reading. Thanks for tagging me, guys!
When someone disagrees with you online and demands you prove your point to their satisfaction by writing a complete and logically sound defense including citations, you can save a lot of time by not doing that.
Bro, I’ve known you for twelve seconds and enjoyed none of them, I’m not taking homework assignments from you.
This got a lot of responses from people pointing out that evidence is a key part of intellectual inquiry, discourse, and debate. That being able to support your beliefs is a key critical thinking skill. Which is 100% true.
Except that you don’t actually have to participate in intellectual discourse any time some fucko on the Internet tells you to.
There’s a vast difference between “this is an important thing to be able to do,” and “this is a thing that you must be continuously available to perform in public for any stranger who asks.”
I am a black artist. I am a huge fan of Black Panther. These two things combined have resulted in me eagerly jumping into drawing Black Panther fanart. The movie was amazing and inspired me in ways that I cannot begin to describe, and yet, in the two fanart pieces I created for this fantastic movie, I have been called racist, terrible, accused of “white-washing”, and been harassed.
Me. A black artist. Racist against black people because apparently I’ve colored a character’s skin too dark for some people’s tastes or far too light.
None of them were genuine critiques, either. Not advice on how to better reach a more approved way of coloring a characters skin, but just either vicious accusations or outright rude statements, as if they forget that there is a person behind the drawings they consume.
I’m a person just like everyone else here. I am very open to critiques to improve my art when they come from a stance of actually wanting to have that person get better or learn rather than to just hurt them and put them down.
I made an error in my first Black Panther drawing of Shuri where I had drawn her a bit darker than I should have. I had realized that when I used a reference picture for her, I picked one where she was in a darker room with many shadows being casted upon her skin, adding more shade than what is usually shown by her skin tone. I acknowledged that mess up, but by the time I had realized, that post had already gathered a life of its own. I promised myself that the next time I made Black Panther fanart I would make sure to look at multiple references of the actor/actress and learn how to properly color-pick.
Which leads me to my new post I had created. I made a silly Killmonger comic that was a direct reference to the “you could shop at five or six stores or just one”. I was terrified to mess up on the skin tone, because I know even slight errors make people on this website go insane. I went out of my way to make sure I had a nice, flat skintone for him, seeing as I was only intending to implement incredibly minimal lighting and shadows in my comic.
I did research. I looked up information on how to properly identify skin tone (some of which were unreachable, seeing as they told me to check behind the ear of the person lol). All the information I looked up told me to find the skin tone through the “undertone”, which is the base skin color one has that is unaffected by light or shadows casted in a room. With that knowledge in mind, I made sure to find at least 5 references where I could color-pick out the undertones of Michael B. Jordan without focusing on any specifically bright or shadowed areas of his face or body. The readings I looked up also stated that more natural lighting may help with my choice, and a few of these (notably the Black Panther promo picture) have certain dramatic lightings. I kept that in mind and I predominantly focused on color-picking the area between his cheekbone and jawline to find his coloring. These were my results:
In all of my images that I referenced, where I made sure to avoid highlights in the cheeks, it showed that his skin tends to have a more honeyed brown undertone.
At no point was my intention for this comic to be white-washed or offensive. I did research and tried my best to stay true to his coloring (and the fanart I’ve seen of him on this site have too wide of a variation in skin color that I was too unsure to pick one from those). If I perhaps hurt or upset others with my coloration of his character, then I truly do apologize. That was nowhere near my intention. I love the character Killmonger and I ADORED Black Panther. If anyone has a better way of finding base skin tones from real actors/actresses (I primarily draw fanart of cartoons that tend to have base set palettes so I rarely encounter this issue), then please by all means give me the sources and information. I’d love to learn more!
What isn’t okay about this is how people on this website are so quick to jump and throw ridiculous and offensive statements without knowing anything about the person they’re targeting or the art they created. That these people are so easily able to forget that there is a person behind the art astounds me. I’m human. I learn, make mistakes, and grow like you do. I’m a passionate artist who was just trying to draw dedicative art to a movie that meant a lot to her in a number of ways.
This movie is important. It’s doing something that has never been done before and that’s going to inspire a lot of people to start creating content. Some who are younger than me, who possibly don’t have a firm grasp on anatomy, color theory, or skin tones. They’ll try, they’ll post, and they will get harassed endlessly if they have a toe out of line. And that’s no atmosphere to inspire growth. If we want more fanart and more celebration for black characters and black productions, we have to be more understanding of growth and how to properly critique people without screeching that they’re white-washing monsters or awful racists. Of course, it’s not our JOBS to spare feelings of those hurt or upset, but I promise you’ll find more PoC characters being illustrated when people learn to not stick to the “one strike you’re out” policy that Tumblr has created.
OP’s experience is an example of what I’m talking about when I say that shame culture is even more harmful/more likely to impact marginalized people than non-marginalized. A white artist getting bombarded with this reaction after an equally honest effort to pick a good skin tone would still be hurt, but at least the hurt would be limited to their online life. As a black woman, OP has to deal with racist shit everywhere, and now gets a bonus helping of being accused in participating in her own oppression.
OP, I’ve added a screencap of your tags because I want to draw attention to the emotional impact on you. I’m so sorry that you’ve been through this, particularly when some percentage of the outrage seems to be purely performative. And thank you for sharing this. It can’t have been easy. 😦
Representation matters, but this shit needs to stop.
OP, your fanart is lovely and you did nothing wrong. I love the expressive way you draw faces!
Fuck man I’ve literally never even thought about this (which sounds so stupid when I type it out but that ‘s the insidiousness of abelism isn’t it? If we aren’t he ones affected we don’t think about it) but that’s ridiculous. Getting a brail menu made up can’t be that difficult. (And if it is, it shouldn’t be.) The big chain restaurants, certainly, have no excuse for not doing this. They can afford to put in that effort, can afford those extra printing costs without question. And they should be doing it, without question. But they won’t unless we say something.
So how about the next time you go into a restaurant, you ask them if they have a brail menu. Tell them you’re “checking for a friend” or whatever, I don’t care. Just ask them. Start making posts and tweets. Heck, tweet at the restaurants if they’ve got twitter accounts. If enough people ask, if enough pressure gets placed, they’ll see there’s a demand. They’ll see there’s a need, an obligation to provide a basic fucking menu that everyone can access. And maybe they’ll take steps to meet it. We can hope right?
Because the fact that this isn’t already standard practice is fucking appalling.
[ Image is a screenshot of a tweeted photo. It features a woman’s hands while reading a Braille menu. The tweet says, “My sister has been in this world 18 yrs and today is the first time she has been offered a menu at a restaurant. ]
So who’s keeping you free? It surely isn’t you getting up at 5am every morning to protect this country? The fuck?? End this, people have died so you can sit safely at home to say stupid shit like this
Ma’am how are your troops protecting you by going overseas and stealing oil from Middle Eastern countries 🤔🤔 People have died so Shell and Exxonmobil have a better balance sheet, not to protect your naive as fuck ass who believes that America is “defending” itself by actively invading and waging war in the Middle East
^ Shots of both the front and back of my sign today.
Education cannot happen within an environment where the students are afraid: Guns & Learning are mutually exclusive.
You see, we don’t simply teach academics in school. School is where children learn how to interact with their peers, learn who they are as people, develop the ability to make responsible decisions, learn how to set (and achieve) positive goals, develop empathy for others, and develop the skills necessary to identify, manage and communicate their own emotions in a healthy manner.
This is the entire basis of social-emotional learning. It’s a necessary aspect of school that is directly embedded in the process of creating a community that students can flourish in. These are skills tied to a child’s self esteem, self advocacy and relationship development.
A student cannot learn if they are focused on self-preservation.
A student cannot learn if they are in an unstable, unsafe or violent environment
A student cannot learn if they cannot trust the people that they are with
I can help keep my students safe from many of the harms out there: Backpack programs, clothing drives, mediation, CPS, counselors, social workers, career training programs, job fairs, mental health services…all these things can combine together in order to get a student through whatever troubles they’re experiencing. But guns? Mass shootings? Violence across the nation? I can discuss it, I can comfort, but I can’t stop it. And that’s not a situation that any of us should be in.
I don’t know where I’m going with this – Teachers are pressured not to discuss any of these things. We’re meant to always defer to the Union for official statements and always turn questions back on the students who may try to talk to us: “What do you think? How do you feel?” This past year has been an isolating experience, trying to formulate my own thoughts and deal with the ever-increasing number of tragedies. So just seeing this march today was comforting. Knowing that others are still concerned and ready to take action makes me feel less alone.
wupacing 