You may or may not have heard about the spate of sexual assaults now coming to light from this year's Dragon*Con. As a regular congoer (and con-lover), I'm saddened and dismayed to hear that this is happening.

It's time for some action.

moonanstars has posted on the dragoncon lj comm suggesting safety volunteers wearing bright colored shirts, easily identifiable, who ( Read more... )

Hipster racism involves making derogatory comments with a racial basis in an attempt to seem witty and above it all. Specifically, the idea is to sound ironic, as in “I’m allowed to say this because of course I’m not racist, so it’s funny.” It’s an aspect of a larger part of the hipster culture, which wants to seem jaded and urbane and oh-so- ( Read more... )

I'd been avoiding the Victorientalism thing going on around the internets, somewhat because that word is fucking stupid and it's mere existence fills me with rage, but mainly because the conclusions seem so obvious to me: OMFG you're being racist please just shut up and go back to sewing buttons on things.

I guess I tend to forget that not everyone ( Read more... )

I feel bombarded lately with all this language about offense or harm, causing offense or harm, what people really meant when they caused offense or harm, how wrong it is to feel offended or harmed, who is right when offense or harm occurs, etc.  It's personal - I'm going through some PTSD-related triggering crap at the moment - and also political ( Read more... )

With my rl friends, nearly every attempt to have a fun night of silly mindlessness turns into a serious debate about something or another.  Not complaining, I love this about my friends.  We are people who talk about Important Things.  I'd have it no other way.

So I was explaining why I think Avatar is racist and why I'm not interested in ever ( Read more... )

I fired up Wikipedia to do a little demographic research on the fair state of Virginia - pertaining to my displeasure with the CW and The Vampire Diaries from a previous evening - only to discover my hypothesis didn't quite pan out.

( demographics and representation )

I came home tonight all excited to watch my night of cracky goodness on the CW, but then something irked me. And then it made me think of something else that irked me. Oh cee dub, why you gotta do me like that?

(At least my new Jess icon is appropriate. Dub tee eff, guys.) (But only at dw, here it's just the ever-present facepalm.)

So here's what ( Read more... )