Timesbrokenhearts

this was like genuinely years ago On Here which is like 70 years in normal people time but I have never ever ever ever stopped thinking about when there was a post on my dash that just said something to the effect of "when's the last time you read a book by a Black woman?" and the notes were just. absolutely festering with people old enough to be on god's green internet openly admitting that they genuinely weren't sure if they had read a book by a Black women literally ever in their entire lives. and I think about that just constantly because it really is evident in the greater tumblrina culture.

usually they don't write the race of the author next to their name on the book. or gender for that matter. and even if they did, i wouldn't read any of those, since i already don't read the name. i genuinely have no idea who any of the people who wrote the books i read are. i like what they did. with the books. but i don't know what their names are.

that's really cool, definitely something to be proud of

Reading the comments has me vaguely puzzled. I really wasn’t aware that one could only get a good grade as a decent person and reader by compiling a list of every gender and race and systematically checking the box as you go down the list. Forget what you like, forget your comfort reads you must make sure you have fulfilled the list. Telling people that if they’re not fulfilling an expansive enough list they aren’t good readers or decent people is a sure fire way to make them stop reading.

Also since I know I’m going to hear a screech of racist my favorite current books are The Pillowbook of Sei Shonagon and Fatima Mernessi’s Dreams of Trespass am I getting a good enough grade?

if you have to forget everything you like and find comforting in order to read a book by a Black woman, that is evidence of systemic racism. the idea that Black women don't write books in your preferred genres is evidence of systemic racism. The idea that a book written by a Black woman will be fundamentally uncomfortable is evidence of systemic racism.

first, it's not about grades. that is something you've added into this. which tells me that you personally grade your own morality by the books you read. if you have to go down and make a list for yourself in order to avoid exclusively reading white men, that is evidence of systemic racism. the fact that you are so defensive about this instead of realizing you're missing out on a lot of good authors and just picking up a book in your preferred genre by a Black woman is evidence of systemic racism.

no. what you wrote was incredibly racist. you are getting high marks in defensive racism (WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO READ BLACK WOMEN????? WHY????? WHY????? WHY ARE YOU SAYING THIS TO ME???? I'M A GOOD READER LOOK AT THE OTHER MARGINALIZED IDENTITIES I READ!! I DON'T NEED ANY MORE!! IM A GOOD WHITE PEOPLE ALREADY!! TELL ME I'M GOOD!! ACKNOWLEDGE THAT I'M GOOD!!!!)

it's fully an option to go "oh! i don't read a lot of Black women and I never noticed. there's a lot of good fiction i haven't touched! yipeeeee more books for meeeeee!" getting so bogged down and self involved that you feel the need to announce to the world that you Do Not Need to read Black Women Authors to be a good person is a sign that you are not reckoning with the systemic racism in play and the way it has impacted the authors you're exposed to, you are instead trying to prove to yourself and others that you are pure and have cleansed yourself of systemic racism and have a Good And Legitimate Reason to Not Read Black Women. which you don't. there isn't one. there are a lot of Black women authors and a lot of books. if you haven't found any you like, that is evidence of systemic racism.

This I will respond to. At the age of 16 I read everything I could get my hands on of Octavia Butler. Xenogensis blew me away, in my mind it was a masterwork of showing both humanity and alien. Bloodchild gave me a moral quandary. I still reread these. I see Nnedi Okorafor and N. K. Jemisin as perhaps the newest most innovative of a generation of Science Fiction writers. If you think I’m limiting myself to just Science Fiction there is Amanda Gorman’s poetry. I AM NOT listing these things to prove I’ve cleansed myself of systemic racism. It is everywhere and unavoidable. I guess I didn’t convey precisely what I meant on my first statement. That is on me. The initial post had a point. The commentary however… insisting that readers must monitor their reading, must assess their prejudices, must check every book. This isn’t reality at least not out in the weeds. I work at a library it’s small the population is aging. Witness the discussion about my 90 year old. I was exceptionally proud to get her reading something else. Maybe it isn’t enough for the commentators in fact at least one person mocked it. But the truth is I’m trying, all librarians are trying to expand everyone’s horizons. But out and out attempts at shaming people or telling them they are racist for not branching out it doesn’t work it drives people away. I’ve heavily advocated in my library for the books I mentioned above. They are there and when someone comes in and says “I’m bored what have you got?” I sidle over to my favorites and say “here try this “ maybe it’s not enough for some people but with the resources we have and the times we live in all we can do is try. Biggest victory so far is getting our book group who’s average age is 70 to read Butler’s Parable of the Sower they loved it and wanted the second part.

As an addendum I am perfectly aware that I have biases and prejudices and yes I’m working on them. There is no such thing as being cleansed of racism and I sure as hell have no problem reading books written by black women. I also do not appreciate being compared to the alt right and the Woke statement. I’m a fucking librarian in a state that’s doing everything they can to restrict libraries. I’m doing my best to make sure diverse books stay on the shelves just like every librarian I know. The value of varied points of view is irreplaceable and censorship is an abomination. So don’t accuse me of racism if I state I feel shame is not the way to go.

i’m not going to absolve you either. if you feel ashamed of how few Black women you read, it’s easy to change.

I will say I find it absolutely baffling that a librarian (apparently from a red state working to keep these books on the shelves) is arguing against checking them out in order to coddle white people shame.

I don’t require absolution. I’m not ashamed of how many black women authors I read. I read more than science fiction which I used as an example.

You misunderstood. I want them checked out, I’m excited to share these books. The more they are checked out the more I can argue for more of them. But I will not use shame as a tool to get people to check them out. It doesn’t work, shame as a motivator never works.

In the end the goal is to get people to read and explore the things that they have never encountered.To see things from another side.To put a book down and realize their view of the world has been changed . I guess we will have to disagree on how to reach that point.

On another note I highly recommend Fatima Mernessi’s Dreams of Trespass. While she is not a black woman she was a leading scholar of women in Islamic history and the book explores what it was like to live in one of the last family harems in Algiers. It to will leave you with a changed view on women and harems.

if that was your goal, you could have redirected and provided recommendations, like many other people in the reblogs. you could have added a little blurb about why you loved each book. you could have said “it’s okay if you didn’t notice until now! but now that you have, here’s where and how to get started!” if you are actually in fact a librarian, I would have expected you to put those skills to work and direct people towards books written by Black women in a warm and welcoming way, thereby supporting the authors impacted by systemic racism and lessening the shame you’re so concerned about. and that likely would have gotten you positive responses instead of a barrage of criticism. you didn’t do that.

what you actually did (in public) is:

1) make it about you personally and your Progressivist Street Cred. it is not about you. it is about the wealth of incredible authors being ignored. it is about Black Women Authors And How To Support Them As They Face Systemic Racism.

2) divert the topic from systemic racism that Black women experience by using Asian American writers as a bludgeon in your argument (which. to be clear. you can be antiblack and racist towards Black people while being perfectly nice to Asian people. they are different groups of people with different experiences of the world and different hardships. reading asian authors is irrelevant to antiblack racism.)

3) prioritize white people’s feelings about racism over the real impacts of racism.

the fact of the matter remains. you personally do not regularly read Black women authors. you personally said a bunch of racist shit to defend your personal decision and argue to the public that nobody needs to make any particular effort to read Black women authors, especially if it makes them feel bad. this is systemic racism in action. part of systemic racism is prioritizing your feelings about racism over the well-being of people subjected to racism.

you are so focused on yourself, your morals, what it means about you that you’re not putting in this type of effort that you are arguing to the public that white people’s shame about their reading habits is more damaging and more important to cater to than systemic racism and suppression of diverse voices. you are more offended by the association between yourself and racism than by actual racism. you are wasting everyone’s time (mine most of all) on white guilt.

and to be clear, there are actions and behaviors that you SHOULD be ashamed of. racism is one of them. shame CAN be toxic when overloaded, but it is also an important emotion for managing sociality. you should feel ashamed for yelling at someone because that internal emotional reaction is part of the self control that prevents you from doing it again. if you had allowed yourself to feel shame and introspect about it the first time someone told you that you were being racist in this thread, you wouldn’t be at the bottom of a grave you dug for yourself right now. you personally should feel ashamed of your conduct in this thread. you have said a wealth of incredibly racist things, you have claimed to have access to library-based skills and resources that you did not use, and you have so thoroughly missed the point that you think the appropriate response is to hand deliver treatises about how you’re not racist to my inbox as if your fixation on defending your honor isn’t further evidence of the racism in and of itself.

Well I tried but apparently conversation or discussion really wasn’t in the works. This “discussion “ was really only about you laying down judgement and your judgement is that I’m a racist. No amount of talking or trying to communicate will change that judgement.You don’t actually seem to see a person only what you want project onto someone. That is your choice and now here is mine. I will walk away knowing I tried.

this was like genuinely years ago On Here which is like 70 years in normal people time but I have never ever ever ever stopped thinking about when there was a post on my dash that just said something to the effect of "when's the last time you read a book by a Black woman?" and the notes were just. absolutely festering with people old enough to be on god's green internet openly admitting that they genuinely weren't sure if they had read a book by a Black women literally ever in their entire lives. and I think about that just constantly because it really is evident in the greater tumblrina culture.

usually they don't write the race of the author next to their name on the book. or gender for that matter. and even if they did, i wouldn't read any of those, since i already don't read the name. i genuinely have no idea who any of the people who wrote the books i read are. i like what they did. with the books. but i don't know what their names are.

that's really cool, definitely something to be proud of

Reading the comments has me vaguely puzzled. I really wasn’t aware that one could only get a good grade as a decent person and reader by compiling a list of every gender and race and systematically checking the box as you go down the list. Forget what you like, forget your comfort reads you must make sure you have fulfilled the list. Telling people that if they’re not fulfilling an expansive enough list they aren’t good readers or decent people is a sure fire way to make them stop reading.

Also since I know I’m going to hear a screech of racist my favorite current books are The Pillowbook of Sei Shonagon and Fatima Mernessi’s Dreams of Trespass am I getting a good enough grade?

if you have to forget everything you like and find comforting in order to read a book by a Black woman, that is evidence of systemic racism. the idea that Black women don't write books in your preferred genres is evidence of systemic racism. The idea that a book written by a Black woman will be fundamentally uncomfortable is evidence of systemic racism.

first, it's not about grades. that is something you've added into this. which tells me that you personally grade your own morality by the books you read. if you have to go down and make a list for yourself in order to avoid exclusively reading white men, that is evidence of systemic racism. the fact that you are so defensive about this instead of realizing you're missing out on a lot of good authors and just picking up a book in your preferred genre by a Black woman is evidence of systemic racism.

no. what you wrote was incredibly racist. you are getting high marks in defensive racism (WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO READ BLACK WOMEN????? WHY????? WHY????? WHY ARE YOU SAYING THIS TO ME???? I'M A GOOD READER LOOK AT THE OTHER MARGINALIZED IDENTITIES I READ!! I DON'T NEED ANY MORE!! IM A GOOD WHITE PEOPLE ALREADY!! TELL ME I'M GOOD!! ACKNOWLEDGE THAT I'M GOOD!!!!)

it's fully an option to go "oh! i don't read a lot of Black women and I never noticed. there's a lot of good fiction i haven't touched! yipeeeee more books for meeeeee!" getting so bogged down and self involved that you feel the need to announce to the world that you Do Not Need to read Black Women Authors to be a good person is a sign that you are not reckoning with the systemic racism in play and the way it has impacted the authors you're exposed to, you are instead trying to prove to yourself and others that you are pure and have cleansed yourself of systemic racism and have a Good And Legitimate Reason to Not Read Black Women. which you don't. there isn't one. there are a lot of Black women authors and a lot of books. if you haven't found any you like, that is evidence of systemic racism.

This I will respond to. At the age of 16 I read everything I could get my hands on of Octavia Butler. Xenogensis blew me away, in my mind it was a masterwork of showing both humanity and alien. Bloodchild gave me a moral quandary. I still reread these. I see Nnedi Okorafor and N. K. Jemisin as perhaps the newest most innovative of a generation of Science Fiction writers. If you think I’m limiting myself to just Science Fiction there is Amanda Gorman’s poetry. I AM NOT listing these things to prove I’ve cleansed myself of systemic racism. It is everywhere and unavoidable. I guess I didn’t convey precisely what I meant on my first statement. That is on me. The initial post had a point. The commentary however… insisting that readers must monitor their reading, must assess their prejudices, must check every book. This isn’t reality at least not out in the weeds. I work at a library it’s small the population is aging. Witness the discussion about my 90 year old. I was exceptionally proud to get her reading something else. Maybe it isn’t enough for the commentators in fact at least one person mocked it. But the truth is I’m trying, all librarians are trying to expand everyone’s horizons. But out and out attempts at shaming people or telling them they are racist for not branching out it doesn’t work it drives people away. I’ve heavily advocated in my library for the books I mentioned above. They are there and when someone comes in and says “I’m bored what have you got?” I sidle over to my favorites and say “here try this “ maybe it’s not enough for some people but with the resources we have and the times we live in all we can do is try. Biggest victory so far is getting our book group who’s average age is 70 to read Butler’s Parable of the Sower they loved it and wanted the second part.

As an addendum I am perfectly aware that I have biases and prejudices and yes I’m working on them. There is no such thing as being cleansed of racism and I sure as hell have no problem reading books written by black women. I also do not appreciate being compared to the alt right and the Woke statement. I’m a fucking librarian in a state that’s doing everything they can to restrict libraries. I’m doing my best to make sure diverse books stay on the shelves just like every librarian I know. The value of varied points of view is irreplaceable and censorship is an abomination. So don’t accuse me of racism if I state I feel shame is not the way to go.

i’m not going to absolve you either. if you feel ashamed of how few Black women you read, it’s easy to change.

I will say I find it absolutely baffling that a librarian (apparently from a red state working to keep these books on the shelves) is arguing against checking them out in order to coddle white people shame.

I don’t require absolution. I’m not ashamed of how many black women authors I read. I read more than science fiction which I used as an example.

You misunderstood. I want them checked out, I’m excited to share these books. The more they are checked out the more I can argue for more of them. But I will not use shame as a tool to get people to check them out. It doesn’t work, shame as a motivator never works.

In the end the goal is to get people to read and explore the things that they have never encountered.To see things from another side.To put a book down and realize their view of the world has been changed . I guess we will have to disagree on how to reach that point.

On another note I highly recommend Fatima Mernessi’s Dreams of Trespass. While she is not a black woman she was a leading scholar of women in Islamic history and the book explores what it was like to live in one of the last family harems in Algiers. It to will leave you with a changed view on women and harems.

this was like genuinely years ago On Here which is like 70 years in normal people time but I have never ever ever ever stopped thinking about when there was a post on my dash that just said something to the effect of "when's the last time you read a book by a Black woman?" and the notes were just. absolutely festering with people old enough to be on god's green internet openly admitting that they genuinely weren't sure if they had read a book by a Black women literally ever in their entire lives. and I think about that just constantly because it really is evident in the greater tumblrina culture.

usually they don't write the race of the author next to their name on the book. or gender for that matter. and even if they did, i wouldn't read any of those, since i already don't read the name. i genuinely have no idea who any of the people who wrote the books i read are. i like what they did. with the books. but i don't know what their names are.

that's really cool, definitely something to be proud of

Reading the comments has me vaguely puzzled. I really wasn’t aware that one could only get a good grade as a decent person and reader by compiling a list of every gender and race and systematically checking the box as you go down the list. Forget what you like, forget your comfort reads you must make sure you have fulfilled the list. Telling people that if they’re not fulfilling an expansive enough list they aren’t good readers or decent people is a sure fire way to make them stop reading.

Also since I know I’m going to hear a screech of racist my favorite current books are The Pillowbook of Sei Shonagon and Fatima Mernessi’s Dreams of Trespass am I getting a good enough grade?

if you have to forget everything you like and find comforting in order to read a book by a Black woman, that is evidence of systemic racism. the idea that Black women don't write books in your preferred genres is evidence of systemic racism. The idea that a book written by a Black woman will be fundamentally uncomfortable is evidence of systemic racism.

first, it's not about grades. that is something you've added into this. which tells me that you personally grade your own morality by the books you read. if you have to go down and make a list for yourself in order to avoid exclusively reading white men, that is evidence of systemic racism. the fact that you are so defensive about this instead of realizing you're missing out on a lot of good authors and just picking up a book in your preferred genre by a Black woman is evidence of systemic racism.

no. what you wrote was incredibly racist. you are getting high marks in defensive racism (WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO READ BLACK WOMEN????? WHY????? WHY????? WHY ARE YOU SAYING THIS TO ME???? I'M A GOOD READER LOOK AT THE OTHER MARGINALIZED IDENTITIES I READ!! I DON'T NEED ANY MORE!! IM A GOOD WHITE PEOPLE ALREADY!! TELL ME I'M GOOD!! ACKNOWLEDGE THAT I'M GOOD!!!!)

it's fully an option to go "oh! i don't read a lot of Black women and I never noticed. there's a lot of good fiction i haven't touched! yipeeeee more books for meeeeee!" getting so bogged down and self involved that you feel the need to announce to the world that you Do Not Need to read Black Women Authors to be a good person is a sign that you are not reckoning with the systemic racism in play and the way it has impacted the authors you're exposed to, you are instead trying to prove to yourself and others that you are pure and have cleansed yourself of systemic racism and have a Good And Legitimate Reason to Not Read Black Women. which you don't. there isn't one. there are a lot of Black women authors and a lot of books. if you haven't found any you like, that is evidence of systemic racism.

This I will respond to. At the age of 16 I read everything I could get my hands on of Octavia Butler. Xenogensis blew me away, in my mind it was a masterwork of showing both humanity and alien. Bloodchild gave me a moral quandary. I still reread these. I see Nnedi Okorafor and N. K. Jemisin as perhaps the newest most innovative of a generation of Science Fiction writers. If you think I’m limiting myself to just Science Fiction there is Amanda Gorman’s poetry. I AM NOT listing these things to prove I’ve cleansed myself of systemic racism. It is everywhere and unavoidable. I guess I didn’t convey precisely what I meant on my first statement. That is on me. The initial post had a point. The commentary however… insisting that readers must monitor their reading, must assess their prejudices, must check every book. This isn’t reality at least not out in the weeds. I work at a library it’s small the population is aging. Witness the discussion about my 90 year old. I was exceptionally proud to get her reading something else. Maybe it isn’t enough for the commentators in fact at least one person mocked it. But the truth is I’m trying, all librarians are trying to expand everyone’s horizons. But out and out attempts at shaming people or telling them they are racist for not branching out it doesn’t work it drives people away. I’ve heavily advocated in my library for the books I mentioned above. They are there and when someone comes in and says “I’m bored what have you got?” I sidle over to my favorites and say “here try this “ maybe it’s not enough for some people but with the resources we have and the times we live in all we can do is try. Biggest victory so far is getting our book group who’s average age is 70 to read Butler’s Parable of the Sower they loved it and wanted the second part.

As an addendum I am perfectly aware that I have biases and prejudices and yes I’m working on them. There is no such thing as being cleansed of racism and I sure as hell have no problem reading books written by black women. I also do not appreciate being compared to the alt right and the Woke statement. I’m a fucking librarian in a state that’s doing everything they can to restrict libraries. I’m doing my best to make sure diverse books stay on the shelves just like every librarian I know. The value of varied points of view is irreplaceable and censorship is an abomination. So don’t accuse me of racism if I state I feel shame is not the way to go.

this was like genuinely years ago On Here which is like 70 years in normal people time but I have never ever ever ever stopped thinking about when there was a post on my dash that just said something to the effect of "when's the last time you read a book by a Black woman?" and the notes were just. absolutely festering with people old enough to be on god's green internet openly admitting that they genuinely weren't sure if they had read a book by a Black women literally ever in their entire lives. and I think about that just constantly because it really is evident in the greater tumblrina culture.

usually they don't write the race of the author next to their name on the book. or gender for that matter. and even if they did, i wouldn't read any of those, since i already don't read the name. i genuinely have no idea who any of the people who wrote the books i read are. i like what they did. with the books. but i don't know what their names are.

that's really cool, definitely something to be proud of

Reading the comments has me vaguely puzzled. I really wasn’t aware that one could only get a good grade as a decent person and reader by compiling a list of every gender and race and systematically checking the box as you go down the list. Forget what you like, forget your comfort reads you must make sure you have fulfilled the list. Telling people that if they’re not fulfilling an expansive enough list they aren’t good readers or decent people is a sure fire way to make them stop reading.

Also since I know I’m going to hear a screech of racist my favorite current books are The Pillowbook of Sei Shonagon and Fatima Mernessi’s Dreams of Trespass am I getting a good enough grade?

reblogging this solely so more people can point and laugh at you

I see someone is a big talker about being calm and collected and thoughtful but not so great at the follow through. Laugh as much as you want. The fact remains this attitude of you’re doing reading wrong if you don’t tear yourself and your reading choices apart is a quick route to having people check out entirely. What’s worse having someone read what they usually read but be open to possibilities or someone stopping entirely because they’ve been told they’re going it wrong?

I have a 90 year old patron, she comes in every week all she reads is mysteries that is all she has read in the last 50 years. (This is a source of pride) This doesn’t stop me from offering her different things, she cheerfully ignores me and reads her mysteries. But I can guarantee you if I informed her she simply has to read something besides mysteries, that she’s being intentionally ignorant and avoiding examining her prejudices I will have cut off any avenue of connection at all.

Slow and steady and keeping my mouth shut sucks. But last month I actually managed to get her to read Science Fiction granted it was a mystery but she branched out.

lmaaaoooooooo

yeah you're so right never reading any science fiction is EXACTLY the same as never reading anything by a Black person. incredibly incisive comparison there. not even a little bit Super Racist of you <3

There is no use in engaging with you. The comment about calling me super racist and denigrating an elders attempt to reach out and try to engage with something new makes that clear. You don’t want to converse or acknowledge that people will engage the literary world differently than you. They have to do it your way or they’re Super racist and not reading the “right” things. Funny thing about your statements you never once asked me about the authors of the mysteries she read nor the science fiction novel. But they don’t matter you’ve passed judgement and decided both she and I are wrong. This isn’t an exchange of ideas or thoughts as I (wrongly) presumed just an opportunity to shame someone.

this was like genuinely years ago On Here which is like 70 years in normal people time but I have never ever ever ever stopped thinking about when there was a post on my dash that just said something to the effect of "when's the last time you read a book by a Black woman?" and the notes were just. absolutely festering with people old enough to be on god's green internet openly admitting that they genuinely weren't sure if they had read a book by a Black women literally ever in their entire lives. and I think about that just constantly because it really is evident in the greater tumblrina culture.

usually they don't write the race of the author next to their name on the book. or gender for that matter. and even if they did, i wouldn't read any of those, since i already don't read the name. i genuinely have no idea who any of the people who wrote the books i read are. i like what they did. with the books. but i don't know what their names are.

that's really cool, definitely something to be proud of

Reading the comments has me vaguely puzzled. I really wasn’t aware that one could only get a good grade as a decent person and reader by compiling a list of every gender and race and systematically checking the box as you go down the list. Forget what you like, forget your comfort reads you must make sure you have fulfilled the list. Telling people that if they’re not fulfilling an expansive enough list they aren’t good readers or decent people is a sure fire way to make them stop reading.

Also since I know I’m going to hear a screech of racist my favorite current books are The Pillowbook of Sei Shonagon and Fatima Mernessi’s Dreams of Trespass am I getting a good enough grade?

reblogging this solely so more people can point and laugh at you

I see someone is a big talker about being calm and collected and thoughtful but not so great at the follow through. Laugh as much as you want. The fact remains this attitude of you’re doing reading wrong if you don’t tear yourself and your reading choices apart is a quick route to having people check out entirely. What’s worse having someone read what they usually read but be open to possibilities or someone stopping entirely because they’ve been told they’re going it wrong?

I have a 90 year old patron, she comes in every week all she reads is mysteries that is all she has read in the last 50 years. (This is a source of pride) This doesn’t stop me from offering her different things, she cheerfully ignores me and reads her mysteries. But I can guarantee you if I informed her she simply has to read something besides mysteries, that she’s being intentionally ignorant and avoiding examining her prejudices I will have cut off any avenue of connection at all.

Slow and steady and keeping my mouth shut sucks. But last month I actually managed to get her to read Science Fiction granted it was a mystery but she branched out.

Ahsoka at the Siege of Mandalore

I sent this to my dad, who's been a boiler tech for 30 years.

“Of the two ways you can explode a boiler, that’s the best one” isn’t the comfort your father thinks it is

this was like genuinely years ago On Here which is like 70 years in normal people time but I have never ever ever ever stopped thinking about when there was a post on my dash that just said something to the effect of "when's the last time you read a book by a Black woman?" and the notes were just. absolutely festering with people old enough to be on god's green internet openly admitting that they genuinely weren't sure if they had read a book by a Black women literally ever in their entire lives. and I think about that just constantly because it really is evident in the greater tumblrina culture.

usually they don't write the race of the author next to their name on the book. or gender for that matter. and even if they did, i wouldn't read any of those, since i already don't read the name. i genuinely have no idea who any of the people who wrote the books i read are. i like what they did. with the books. but i don't know what their names are.

that's really cool, definitely something to be proud of

Reading the comments has me vaguely puzzled. I really wasn’t aware that one could only get a good grade as a decent person and reader by compiling a list of every gender and race and systematically checking the box as you go down the list. Forget what you like, forget your comfort reads you must make sure you have fulfilled the list. Telling people that if they’re not fulfilling an expansive enough list they aren’t good readers or decent people is a sure fire way to make them stop reading.

Also since I know I’m going to hear a screech of racist my favorite current books are The Pillowbook of Sei Shonagon and Fatima Mernessi’s Dreams of Trespass am I getting a good enough grade?

Andor Appreciation Day 2 - Everyone Has Their Own Rebellion

@andorappreciation

au where everyones chips all of a sudden just stop working and [almost] all the clones defect and stage a coup

EDIT GUYS PLEASE IM A FOX ENJOYER BUT LIKE I JUST THINK HED BE TOO FAR IN PALPATINES CLUTCHES TO DEFECT OK .. ITS AN ANGST THING PLS :(

corrective action

be the change you want to see in the world

His name is  Onur Albayrak! Here’s the story.

this guy is a hero.

btw - let’s remind ourselves, americans, that unlike turkey, in the US the legal minimum age for marriage is only 18 in two states. in alabama, you can be married as young as fourteen years old if you have “parental permission”. in california, you can get married under 18 if you go to counseling, have a parent with you when you apply for the marriage license, and appear before a judge. in some states, there isn’t even a specific minimum age for marriage.

the minimum marriage age for girls in new hampshire is 13 years old.

48 states allow child marriage.

child marriage is not an “over there” problem, it happens right here, legally. any one of us might find ourselves called upon to break somebody’s nose if we encounter something like this occurring. we also have a responsibility to support groups and laws trying to end child marriage in this country.

Florida judges have approved child marriages of children down to age 11.

(my daughter deals with this every day!)

Jango’s mother only appears in the Open Seasons comic for one panel but I like her anyway.

In my happy little AU universe, she survives (as does Arla) and they join the True Mandalorians as one big happy family bent on going Kill Bill on Death Watch.

Help I’m obsessed with the idea of that fanfic trope of Mand’alor Jango being inexplicably fixated on Obi Wan except it’s not actually Jango, it’s time-travelling Cody who stole Jango’s identity in an attempt to fix the galaxy using Mandalore as a power base, and that’s why he is incapable of being normal about Obi Wan, who he believes he betrayed and murdered in another life

Obi-Wan was getting very sick of Mandalore.

He was sure he would have liked it better under different circumstances. The language was beautiful, even if the idioms themselves were… less so, and the cuisine was as delicious as it was painful. He liked Satine far more than he probably should have. He might even be able to get past the ubiquity of blasters, if they weren’t shot at him so often. But that was precisely the problem.

Obi-Wan felt a familiar prick of warning from the Force and ducked beneath a sudden streak of blaster fire, Force shoving Satine from the path of a second and wincing when the stool she’d been perched on toppled to the floor, sending her sprawling. He’d be getting an earful about that later. He hauled her to her feet and the pair of them burst through the window of the cantina they’d been eating dinner in, knowing from experience that Death Watch would have commandos at every conventional exit.

Satine pressed close to his back as he shoved his way through the busy street outside, forgoing blending in as a hunting cry went up behind them and Death Watch opened fire, heedless of the crowd. Satine refused to wear armor, and Obi-Wan relied on his agility and maneuverability to win fights, so they were a lot more likely to be killed by a blaster than anyone else around them. This particular dome city was a traditionalist holdout, so most of the passerby were fortunately wearing beskar. Less fortunate was the fact that they hated Jedi, so Obi-Wan had to forgo using his lightsaber unless absolutely necessary.

Mandalorians were a shoot first, ask questions later sort of people, and many of the people around them were doing just that in retaliation. Traditionalists didn’t hate Death Watch any less than they hated Jedi. Obi-Wan grabbed Satine’s hand and the pair of them pelted down the street, their path quickly clearing as Mandalorians scrambled for the best vantage points for a firefight. The rooftops would quickly become more crowded than the street, at this rate—every other person they passed was wearing a jetpack, and more than a few had taken off. A pair of them whizzed past overhead, grappling in midair. 

“Over here!” Satine yelled, swerving into a narrow side street, blaster fire narrowly missing her head and scorching the wall behind her. Obi-Wan cursed but followed, his hood slipping down from his speed and baring his distinctive ginger padawan cut. He could only hope they’d be able to find a proper hiding spot, or at least a more open area, before—

Two Mandalorians descended from above, landing heavily in front of them and behind them, effectively cutting off their escape. They’d been neatly caught, like shrill monkeys in a trap. 

Obi-Wan yanked Satine into an alcove and planted himself in front of her, resigning himself to yet again revealing himself as a Jedi and subsequently being hunted for sport for at least the next 48 hours. He reached into his spacer jacket for his concealed saber.

It wasn’t there.

The Death Watch commandos advanced on them, jeering as he frantically searched for it. They liked to play with their food; it had gotten them out of more than one tight jam in the past. Of course, they were still doomed if he had no way to defend them; Satine’s stunner was useless against beskar, and even if she had allowed him to set it to kill, which she never would, it wouldn’t work much better.

Then a streak of dull, dirty metal full body tackled the two commandos, beskar screeching as they went down in a heap. Satine cried out, and Obi-Wan threw himself into the fray, pinning one beneath him and yanking off their helmet so that he could concuss them with it as the newcomer gave the second commando a vicious beatdown. The fact that their opponent was wearing higher-quality beskar didn’t faze them; they just found gaps in the armor to exploit and bent limbs the wrong way until they audibly snapped. Once they stopped, a full minute later, their opponent lay groaning beside the commando Obi-Wan had knocked out without even attempting to stand up.

Obi-Wan turned to look at their rescuer, taking in the piecemeal armor, a patchwork of durasteel and beskar that looked like it had been scavenged from a battlefield, only to find them staring back.

“Hello, there,” he said cautiously.

The stranger laughed. Even through the vocoder, it was a cracked, broken thing. Obi-Wan could sense the swell of some sharp-edged, burning hot emotion, but it was stifled before he could recognize it, as if the stranger had practice, training, even—or had gone through something that made psychic shielding a necessity.

The stranger reached for their belt, and before Obi-Wan could react, they were holding out a familiar silver hilt.

“You dropped this.”

Obi-Wan was proud of the diplomatic poker face Qui-Gon had drummed into him, but he couldn’t help himself. He gaped. Lightsabers were worth tens of thousands of credits on the black market, and that wasn’t even considering the fact that a Mandalorian was willingly arming a Jedi.

Satine thumped him on the back, hissing, “Grab it before he changes his mind!” 

Obi-Wan took it, conscious of the fact that the pommel was pointed towards himself. If he turned it on, it would skewer the man in front of them, but there was no fear in his posture or in the Force, no wariness. Obi-Wan couldn’t quite tell what he was sensing from their rescuer, but there was a lot of it, all focused entirely on him.

“Who are you?” Satine demanded, once Obi-Wan had reclaimed his saber. She might have disdained violence, but she obviously felt safer with a warrior and a weapon between herself and the newcomer.

“No one you need to concern yourself with, Duchess,” he said, and Obi-Wan couldn’t see his eyes, but he could tell he hadn’t so much as glanced Satine’s way. 

“I’m just the heiress. My father is the Duke,” Satine said, though her hand grabbed Obi-Wan’s. They hadn’t heard from Qui-Gon, or Satine’s family, since they’d been separated weeks ago, and the Mandalorian sector was extremely politically unstable. Obi-Wan and his master had been dispatched to calm things down, but so far they hadn’t managed anything of the sort.

That finally caught his attention. “Is that so,” he said mildly, helmet tilting just slightly toward Satine before swiveling back to Obi-Wan. “And that would make you a padawan, yeah?”

Obi-Wan tensed. Most people, even on Coruscant, had very little knowledge of the Order’s internal structures. This man might have asked a question, but it was rhetorical. There was no curiosity in the Force, only certainty, and a swell of something underneath that was steadily building behind beskar mental shields.

“That’s none of your concern.”

“It is when you can’t even hold on to your own weapon,” the man countered. “That’s a bad habit. You need to work on that.”

Mortified, Obi-Wan felt his ears burn. He felt like a fresh initiate being scolded for recklessness, not a Jedi facing off against an ancestral enemy. He wondered, in the back of his mind, what Satine must think of him at the moment.

“Let me help you,” he said, stepping closer. Obi-Wan had to struggle not to back away, conscious of Satine peeking over his shoulder. “I won’t harm you or your heiress.”

“Who are you?” Obi-Wan asked. The man hadn’t deigned to answer Satine earlier, but something told Obi-Wan that he might get a clearer answer.

The man paused, then reached up to remove his helmet. His dark hair was cropped short, his face clean shaven, eyes amber and intent. “Do you recognize me?”

“No. Should I?”

He sighed. “It’s probably for the best that you don’t. I have a ship, down at the stockyards. I can take you to Kalevala, or wherever you need to go.”

“Can you take me to Sundari?” Satine cut in.

“…If that’s what Obi-Wan thinks is best.”

He didn’t—he thought the man must be untrustworthy, even if his strange desire to help Obi-Wan was crystal clear—but he doubted Satine would listen. The stranger calling her Duchess must have caused her to fear for her father’s life, her family’s lives. “I’m her guard, not her keeper, as she often tells me. I go where she goes, not the other way around.”

Their rescuer frowned, but didn’t argue, though Obi-Wan could tell he wanted to. “Understood. Let’s get you out of here.”

Obi-Wan put his hood back up and followed the stranger back into the crowded main street, which was still loud but no longer sounded like a warzone. The fight must be over. He was careful to keep his eyes on the stranger’s blatantly unguarded back, thrown by the man’s irrational trust in him. It was no wonder Satine had been so quick to believe him—he was risking everything to help them, evidently with nothing to gain. He barely seemed to care about Satine at all, which meant he wasn’t affiliated with either side of the current political conflict, either. And while the traditionalists were too scattered to be a true faction anymore, weakened as they were by Death Watch and Galidraan, there was no way the stranger could be one of them—not if he let a Jedi live.

And then one of the milling passersby grabbed Satine and put a blaster to her skull.

Obi-Wan went to ignite his saber, only for the stranger to grab his hand. “Don’t,” he whispered. “You light that thing up, they’ll kill her.”

The crowd surrounding them no longer looked quite so disorganized. They were all traditionalists; the Death Watch commandos had all either fled or died. 

“Mand’alor,” someone said, and the stranger’s hand tightened around Obi-Wan’s own. Obi-Wan whipped his head around, but they weren’t talking to Satine, or some yet-unnoticed Death Watch commando. They were speaking to the man beside him.

He bent close to Obi-Wan’s ear. “If you make a move, Kryze dies. If you do as I say, she’ll be fine. Do you understand?”

The bottom dropped out of Obi-Wan’s stomach. “Yes.”

“Good,” the Mand’alor said, the hand not holding his reaching up to grab his shoulder, as if to reassure him. “I know you… love her. Maybe more than you love being a Jedi. I don’t want to hurt you, even by hurting her, so I won’t unless I have to. I promise.”

Obi-Wan fought to keep his breathing steady. How had the Mand’alor fooled him so thoroughly, seen through him so easily? How had he put a name to the thoughts and feelings that Obi-Wan himself was still in denial about? He couldn’t be a Force user, but how else could he know so much about Obi-Wan?

“Mand’alor Fett,” the traditionalist from before said impatiently.

Satine gasped. “Jango Fett? It can’t be. You died.”

Fett glanced at her. “Well, you’re not wrong.” A curious scar curled at his temple, almost as if his helmet had broken at the visor—but that couldn’t happen with beskar. “She’s to be treated well. We’ll use her as a bargaining chip to get those damn Kalevalan aruetiise off our planet—it’s not like they’re Mando enough to fight. And then we’ll wipe out the rest of Death Watch ourselves.”

“OYA,” the entire street, the entire domed city, thundered, pride and bloodthirst and loyalty swelling so deeply that Obi-Wan almost felt like he was floating in it. And then Fett’s eyes were on Obi-Wan’s again, and he felt a little bit like he’d been caught in a riptide, pulling him under.

A hand touched his cheek, almost tentative. “Obi-Wan, I’m going to make things better. I’ll make it all up to you. Please let me. I won’t kill any Jedi this time.”

Galidraan, Obi-Wan thought, he must mean Galidraan.

“If we’re together,” Fett said, hand sliding beneath his hood and to the back of his neck, “We can fix things. You can feel it, right?”

The Force whispered in his ears, a million words too faint to make out, but it was pushing him, slowly and inexorably, toward the man in front of him.

It wasn’t until later that he thought to wonder why Fett knew his name.

I don’t know why that affected me so strongly, but I’m watching a youtube video on disasters on Lake Huron, and the first one involves a coal freighter that was lost in the White Hurricane of 1913 called the SS Argus. Everyone on the ship was lost. But it’s mentioned that the captain’s body washed up later, and was found without a life jacket. So they thought, based partly on testimony of another ship that thought they saw them go down, that it just happened too fast for him to have time to get his jacket. But then another body was found, that of the second cook, and she was found wearing the life jacket marked ‘captain’. And that’s …

It didn’t work. It didn’t save her. But it’s so very possible that he spent his last moments alive trying to save someone else, one of his crew, and they probably both knew that it wouldn’t work, that there wasn’t a lot of hope in a blizzard on the lakes in November, but he tried … he tried anyway. Even if it did nothing but maybe make her body easier for her family to find.

You know that Mr Rogers thing of ‘look for the helpers’? How many times has someone, facing the end, done something tiny and fragile and maybe hopeless just to try and help someone else? Whether it works or not. How many people went to their graves at least trying?

That has to say something about us. As a people. As monstrous as we sometimes (perhaps often) are, so many times we were also …

Whoever saves one life, saves the whole world.

And sometimes you can’t save one life, sometimes it doesn’t work, sometimes there’s no getting out of this for anyone, but … try anyway. Because it matters anyway.

And maybe no one will ever know. But maybe also some day more than a century down the line, maybe some idiot will be crying into her coffee because of what you died trying.

Fox: I need a break

Literally everyone else: Mental break it is!