Posts tagged with "racism"
“House Republicans Meet at a Former Slave Plantation to Practice Talking to Black People”
People have expressed how baffled they are at the decision to hold a conference on Women and Minorities at a former Slave-Era Plantation.
“House Republicans Meet at a Former Slave Plantation to Practice Talking to Black People”
Myself, I have no doubt that Republicans know exactly what they are doing 99% of the time. Their defeat in the last Presidential election was a near thing and they are already introducing legislation to ensure any votes against them are minimized. No political organization can be so repeatedly publicly incompetent and survive as long as they have unless they can weather the storm with sandbags full of cash. They hold events and utter the most crazed statements that appear designed to provoke the biggest noise from the most vocal niche demographic.
Promoting fear, bigotry and hate are all actions and speech calculated to ensure their wingnut voting base gets off the couch, buys guns in a paranoid rage and maintains their death-grip on a worn bible they have barely read much less understand. They fight transparency, suppress votes, strangle freedom and liberty and promote villains as heroes. Nearly everything the GOP does seems to ensure they stop people from thriving.
I often speculate that it’s likely politicians really can’t stand the base they represent. That goes for Republicans, Democrats and all others, really. It’s like most politicians consider themselves above their constituency, know what’s best and are rarely open to ideas or positive change unless publicly humiliated into to doing so. Few are uneducated but they pretend anyone who has improved themselves is an out of touch elitist. They subsist on Government service, take full advantage of the labyrinthine tax code to their benefit but wag a finger at anyone else trying to save ten dollars on their annual income. It feels like mostly they act only when some powerful donor or organization has a checkbook and a pen or a smartphone app that can make big dollar wire transfer donations to their campaign or soft money accounts.
The first time I saw STXI I saw it alone. My stepdad was at the movie theatre with me, but it was PACKED so we had to sit separately. Give me a minute to talk you through my introduction-to-Nyota-Uhura feelings.
I love her. I love her from the start. I confess I am predisposed to love Zoe Saldana, but — the start of that bar scene! I’m floating down from Spock’s spectacular Vulcan mic drop, and that funky music starts playing, and then we’re given Uhura. She walks with so much attitude, her hair swishing behind her, and the camera moves with her as she moves: she dances through the crowded bar, she bends to greet the people who reach out to her, she smiles and laughs but never truly pauses. I understand what the movie’s telling me, because it’s clear. She’s dynamic and quick and good-humored and beloved, and she’s got places to go and things to do.
She gets to the bar and even the alien, who presumably has totally different standards of beauty, knows she’s hot. Kirk tries to pick her up, and it’s great, because the audience has expectations. Even if you’ve never seen the original series — and at that point, I hadn’t — almost everybody knows that Kirk is a ladies’ man, irresistible throughout the galaxies to female people, regardless of their actual species. But he is extremely resistible to Uhura. How great is this? I’m primed to like Kirk; I know he’s going to be the hero of the movie, I already know he’s lost a lot and that he’s reckless and brave and ridiculous — but how can I not like Uhura? Thanks but no thanks, her drink’s on her. She doesn’t care that Kirk’s the hero of the movie. She’s not turning him down to be difficult; it’s just that she knows what she wants, and it’s not him.
How often in pop culture are black girls allowed to be gorgeous, dynamic, quick, good-humored, and beloved, and immune to the charms of a charming white boy hero with blue eyes and a beautiful mouth? What an uncommon amount of power this narrative’s given her, and in her first scene. The audience isn’t immune to Kirk. Robot cops aren’t immune to Kirk. Captain Pike isn’t immune to Kirk. But Uhura is. It’s too late. I’m in love.
This is amazing. A must read.
