Sunday, July 14, 2013

#WTFFlorida

It is now official: It is again completely legal to kill an unarmed black teenager in Florida, even if you instigated the fight. I thought that at LEAST manslaughter would stick, but not so. There is no justice for the family...unless they take Zimmerman to civil court. I REALLY hope they take him to civil court.

At the base of this whole horrible, shameful situation, we have a pretty simple story: An overzealous ass who wanted to play “Cops & Robbers” provoked a fight with a hormone and testosterone-addled teenager. Fake cop realised he bit off more than he could chew, panicked, and shot the teenager with whom he instigated the fight. Because of the “He’s coming right for us” law in the state in which this all happened, Fake cop got off free after killing someone, claiming he was “standing his ground”. That could have been the end of the conversation, but this is the United States of G-d Damn 'Merica, and when we do a clusterf***, we do it BIG! We're going to make this the biggest piece of rage porn since...well, last week, when Texas kept pushing to make women illegal.

The teenager was black and had a somewhat clouded history of suspensions and fights and drug use. The fake cop had a clouded history of being a slightly unhinged wannabe real cop. This all happened in Florida, a state known for being slightly dysfunctional. If you don’t believe me, look up @_FloridaMan on Twitter. Holy. F***ing. S***.

Florida has a sordid past when it comes to suppressing brown people’s rights. There were about 250 lynchings there from 1881 to 1935 alone, and that is not counting the kangaroo courts that convicted black men and women of crimes that sometimes didn’t even exist, just to execute them. That also doesn’t count the segregation laws, voting laws, the excessive police harassment, and the chain gangs that one could “join” at very young ages for offences as minor as not yielding to a white person walking in one’s path. Incidentally, chain gangs are back. Yay, progress.

This case didn’t have to be about race. It could have just been about a s****y gun law. There are only a few times that Stand Your Ground could even be feasibly used, and those times are already covered under existing self defence laws. In fact, a woman in Jacksonville fired a warning shot at her abusive husband and used the Stand Your Ground defence. She got 20 years.This woman was black. Florida made this about race.

I hear the police are beefing up and preparing for riots in Sanford, FL and surrounding counties. It is 2013, for crying out loud! Black people are not animals or unruly, overgrown children, despite how people would like to portray us. We are human beings. When you know of the history of the misrepresentation of your character, and when you see the social repercussions of nearly 400 years of misrepresentation in every aspect of your country’s culture, and when the people who continue to perpetuate this misrepresentation tell you that racism is over and we need to get over it because someone black got to a higher position than before, you have a right to be angry. The gut instinct of ANY human being who always sees images in the of him/herself overly sexualised and made to look like an unhinged, violent brute is to be a offended. We cannot get too angry, though, even though it would be human nature to be, because the second we so much as raise our voices, pundits will say, “See? They are more aggressive. Zimmerman’s life was in danger!” So we hold it all in and process our anger in better ways than violence. I guess with the exception of Oakland, and though race-related incidents have sparked riots in the past, we’ve grown. Florida has not.

The only thing that this whole terrible incident prove is that Florida has really terrible gun laws that they exercise subjectively, and if you are a black man in the United States, you STILL have to pretend like bulls*** like some a**hole following you because he thinks you “look suspicious” holding your Skittles bothers you less than it really does.

Seriously. What the f***, America?

Friday, July 12, 2013

I Wish I Read "Ender's Game" Before I Knew The Author is a D***

So if you haven’t heard, Orson Scott Card is an accomplished author, a staple in modern science fiction literature, and a repulsive bigot who would go so far as to take down an entire government to prevent Adam from marrying Steve. There is a movie based on his most famous book, Ender’s Game, coming out this summer. Geek OUT urged people to not see this film. Producers are a little nervous, given the backlash that DC comics felt when they wanted him to write The Adventures of Superman. I wrote about that, how how odd a choice it was. SHAMELESS PLUG

Producers actually should be nervous. It was probably already a done deal that this film was in the process of being made or finished when the DC debacle occurred. Readers swore to not buy a single DC product if Card were to write any tale of Kal-El, and DC listened. I doubt they dumped as much money on Orson as Lionsgate already did. To their credit, Lionsgate issued a statement distancing themselves from Card’s anti-gay rants. Beside that, their past choices in films to make that had non-derisive gay characters, like in Gods and Monsters and Perks of Being a Wallflower, plus their own all-inclusive benefits and employment policies, speak much louder than their words. Prior to that, though, Card said this to an interviewer:

With the recent Supreme Court ruling, the gay marriage issue becomes moot.  The Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution will, sooner or later, give legal force in every state to any marriage contract recognized by any other state. Now it will be interesting to see whether the victorious proponents of gay marriage will show tolerance toward those who disagreed with them when the issue was still in dispute.”
My id wants me to just say. “B****, please!” However, my super-ego wants to deconstruct the f*** out of what Mr. Card said.
  1. If the gay marriage issue is moot, then why is Card still on the board committee of the National Organization for Marriage, the spearheaders of CA’s Proposition 8, and leaders in trying to make gay marriage illegal throughout the country? Let’s not forget that they also fight to overturn laws already on the books that protect gays from discrimination in adoption and employment. Check out their site. They’re proud of their work.
  2. Tolerance? TOLERANCE? THis is coming from a man who said he would advocate overthrowing any government that gave equal rights to LGBT people. Essentially, he would rather commit treason than let someone live his/her life. How “tolerant” is that?
  3. He’s obviously worried about this boycott. Well if he is REALLY concerned about tolerance, then why doesn’t he suggest that the NOM board end their boycott on General Mills, Nabisco, T-Mobile, Starbucks, Disney, and SO many other companies that they deemed boycott-worthy because of their open policies and statements advocating and promoting equality amongst all genders?
Essentially, Card wanted some money, as did Lionsgate, which is why they collaborated to make Ender’s Game. Ironically, any NOM member would call for the boycott of Lionsgate, given their inclusive work policies. Were I a Lionsgate exec, I would have done a little more homework and read his 2008 treason promise, his 2004 essay or his 1990 essay  before buying ANY rights to make his work a movie. I guess green is the most tolerant hue of all.

I’m not sure if I’ll watch Ender’s Game or not. Card sold the rights to make the film, so he had his money already. I don’t blame boycotters for showing their disdain by not supporting the project. Perhaps Lionsgate will do a little bit more homework before they offer to buy rights to make a movie. As for Orson, all he’s doing now is showing how much more of a pig he is than the pig from whence I’d like to think he was named.

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