Health, News, Other, Politics

Color Outside the Lines is not watching you

Hello! Welcome to COTL, a discussion place for BIPOC. Posted the first 3 Wednesdays of the month

Thread Rules

  1. We ask that only those who identify as people of color participate in this discussion. White Avocados, while valued members of this community, should remain in ‘lurk’ mode.
  2. Shaming and hateful speech are unacceptable.
  3. Please keep potentially traumatic content safely behind spoiler tags.
  4. Nobody on this thread is more or less a person of color than anyone else. (We will not set clearly delineated boundaries on who qualifies as a ‘person of color.’ As a starting point, this thread uses the definition of ‘non-European heritage of sufficient prominence to affect one’s navigation of a society built on white normativity.’ However, we recognize that there are identities which skirt either side of the divide. If people feel that they meaningfully experience the identity of being a person of color, then they are welcome to participate.)

Hello everyone 👋🏽. Stars here again, after @princessheadphone’s excellent thread last week.

Originally, I wanted to talk about some rather recent issues (from the last few weeks) that have popped up. Particularly regarding 2 remarkably close issues for me: Dean Cain’s (from one of my favourite childhood TV shows 🥲) ICE recruitment declaration & Laverne Cox’s (one of the few prominent trans woman artists of color) admission to dating a “blonde, blue eyed” MAGA loving cop (just after Covid). However, I also feel some if not all this dovetails into a system of oppression & conformity that is also worth bringing up? Please check out the final YouTube video about black conformity, If you wanna skip everything else 🙏🏽.

To be honest, the Laverne Cox news is strangely difficult for me to find: with only 2 to 3 vague posts even showing up in my duckduckgo search! Not sure what to make of that! Perhaps I’m just outside of more younger conversation platforms (like Instagram & tiktok) & that whole ecosystem!

I’m not really on any social media outside of here, YouTube (but mostly nerd entertainment & hardcore leftwing politics – damn does Mamdani have rizz*) a discord channel or two & the occasional reddit browses. Thanks to @blarggblog for bringing the Laverne Cox fallout to my attention 🙏🏽:

Color Outside the Lines

A quick breakdown/short recap of an interesting follow-up over the admission & backlash with Laverne in attendance:

A lot of interesting discussions & points of view, on arguably a very sensitive & personal matter.

The whole accountability discussion (which I haven’t watched completely – IT’S OVER 2 HOURS! there’s the above recaps & a quick review linked below), but really starting to understand some of the povs of what I’ve seen so far:

This is a long (need to watch the whole thing), but fascinating, nuanced discussion. It actually intersects with a lot of my own life & my own struggles, RIGHT NOW (well a few days ago 👀 — no I’m not dating a racist 😅🙃🙏🏽). I’d be interested in seeing what other people of colour here feel like discussing, in terms of desirability politics too? Maybe as a prompt? Preferences & what not? I think it may have been discussed previously in a CotL? Possibly a touchy subject? Or too personal?

A very quick review of the 2hr show:

*”Habibi, release your client list.” Goes so hard & should be on a t-shirt for every politician to see:

The Dean Cain stuff is just soooo dumb! His desire to become an ICE agent comes off as incredibly ignorant to the reality of the actual situation. Incredibly ironic & sad, considering how much I loved his interpretation of Superman (the John Bryne1 “Clark is the real person.” Which should be obvious, right?):

Oh the irony of this scene & Laverne Cox’s discussion about a cop who lied to her about who he was to get her to fall for him initially 🙃. This scene keeps hitting differently the more I think about it.

Ultimately, Dean clearly has no clue on what is actually happening! If you can be bothered to read his comments in the following article. Despite how he almost comes off as thoughtful, he sounds like he’s in a complete bubble? Can’t say Leguizamo is wrong.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/dean-cain-fires-back-at-john-leguizamos-attack-hollywood-backlash-as-former-superman-star-joins-ice/ar-AA1KBcef

This almost feels entirely like a stunt? Maybe the dude needs money? Isn’t there a $50k sign up incentive to become ICE/gestapo?

Lol, as if Trump ever pays his dues 🤣… but then I guess that’s why they’re defunding FEMA, Medicaid** & almost everything that isn’t military or giving the oligarchs/billionaires/corporations a few billion in tax breaks… & yet people wonder why Las Vegas is emptying out.

** jesus:

A collection of recent news headlines discussing the implications of Medicaid cuts affecting Black children and noncitizens, featuring various advocacy concerns and health system challenges.

I don’t think there’s much worth in discussing Dean’s ignorance (other than “oh boy, I sure hope he sees what happens firsthand & wakes the fuck up”2, but I doubt the current administration would want their recruitment drive to completely faceturn, by Dean revealing an eye-opening face turn/account (probably a pipedream) that just about anyone outside of the MAGA bubble could see coming from a mile away if you’ve actually paid attention to the little details?

Or maybe he really does believe a white Canadian man trying to re-enter the US with his American family shouldn’t be allowed to… Or that young foreign women shouldn’t be locked up for weeks in cramped prison cells… for the crime of having the wrong papers?

I really hope “Superman” gets to go & really see Alligator Alcatras & justify that shit!

Fuck him.

There’s some sort of confluence of respectability, purity or desirability(?) politics that I feel appears to be emerging within these news items? Something like self-hate (or the struggles against a system of hate) & the very real struggle of finding community, love & understanding for quite a lot of people of colour within the confines of a post colonial/slavery/imperial western world? Are we even post…? Which begs the question of what exactly is this world (Prompt)?

This popped up into my feed:

Laying down the truths so easily. It makes everyone else in that particular political comedy show seem like they said nothing at all. I swear my history lessons as a kid combined have said less than what he has in a few sentences.

The above video however, led me to this very illuminating & wonderful video essay (that I hope everyone sees) about community & our/everyone’s fears & understanding’s of what it means to be an actual black person of colour in Britain:3

TL;DR: A lot of thoughts, ideas & discussions on how dating, communities & people are forced to conform or find freedom from the oppressive system, in a variety of ways? Some not so healthy avenues (coping mechanisms)?

Prompts: Desirability politics? Preferences? Also are we post-colonial/imperial/slavery4?

Obviously feel free to go off topic & I hope everyone is doing well 🙏🏽.