tielan, posts by tag: race - LiveJournal

They just cast the heroine of Book #2 - the one who ends up with the Viscount Bridgerton. In the books, she's Kate Sheffield, who's pretty enough but not next to her sister who's considered The Imcomparable.

In the TV series? She's going to be KATE SHARMA and she'll be played by Simone Ashley!

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Guess I should get me an icon.

Last week, my mother - an Australian citizen for over 50 years and an Australian resident for over 60 years - tried to change her address with an official government organisation.

They told her that neither her electoral enrolment, nor her Australian passport were sufficient evidence that she was an Australian citizen, and she needed her citizenship papers.

AND THIS IS HOW IT BEGINS.

After fifty years, do you think she still has her citizenship papers? And if they still have the records somewhere, do you think that she can get them cheaply and easily? Do you think the process would be simple to go through for someone who, perhaps, doesn't speak good English - ftr, my mother speaks excellent English although she's going a little deaf. My mother may be up to jumping through whatever hoops are put forward - how many others aren't?

And it raises questions, doesn't it?

Am I safe anymore? Is my citizenship truly unassailable if I'm not white? I was born to non-white Australians - one born here, one immigrated and naturalised here - will I get the benefit of the doubt, or will I spend the rest of my life proving my Australian bona fides? The far end of that question is: will I spend part of my life in a camp like George Takei and other Americans like him did - my goods and property and rights forfeit, my citizenship and loyalty in doubt - simply for being born non-white in a time of conflict?

I said a couple of weeks ago that Australians of Chinese descent were far too successful - individually and collectively - for White Australians to let us pass by without them taking a stab at us. I sincerely didn't think it would be this prophetic (or this personal) this soon.

I was only going to give up alcohol for a month, but I wasn’t prepared for the impact it had
I drank to pretend my life was more interesting. Feeling slow or a little sad in the mornings was so normal I barely noticed it.

Frankly, I don’t think I could handle if my life got any more interesting. I do like a drink every now and then – a glass of wine or a cocktail with dinner.

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The Guardian : Jail if by sea, through the gaps in the system if by air.

When Trump says ‘infested’ we know he’s talking about people of colour: And again the burden of explanation falls disproportionately on non-whites.

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I Kissed Christianity Goodbye.

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Male directors don’t really capture the intimacy of female friendships.

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Chinese Australian History predates the First Fleet

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...called "Beards Of {company}" on the workplace 'FB' equivalent.

Rightythen.

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I wonder if one of the disconnects (just one) between people making light of the "go back to where you came from" is that to such people, it's the equivalent of "you're stupid" playground insult, rather than a threat to someone that any rights they have as an individual are dependent on not being seen as different, or a reminder that someone may have been born here but they will never belong.

There was an SBS/ABC news story about how a bunch of Australian Uighur Muslims have been detained in China and the Australian government is doing nothing to bring them back. If they're not born white, then they're not Australian enough to do anything for.

And watching all this unfold in the world, I wonder, if I were detained overseas, would the Australian government lift a finger since I'm not white?

So.

The worst thing about this challenge has been seeing how innately racist some of the people doing the challenge are.

The FB group for the last couple of days has been full of posts about going back to 'real food' or 'proper food' or 'things you can actually eat', because rice, lentils, chickpeas, and sardines (also: vegetable oil and flour) are, apparently, not food eaten by real or proper people.

Which...I shouldn't have to explain that here. I feel like I want to do that over there thoug.

Language matters. We know the difference between 'asylum-seekers' and 'refugees' vs 'queue-jumpers' and 'illegals'. Implying that the food we've been eating isn't 'real food' lays a stigma on the people stuck eating these rations day after day after day. After a while of having to eat this, refugees probably don't feel very 'real' either - caught in that no-man's-land between the life they used to have back home and the life that western governments very much don't want to allow them.

I'm trying to find a way to bring this up as politely and clearly as possible. I know there will be many people who'll dismiss this as an issue, because OMG AREN'T YOU TRIGGERED but...there might be a few people who will at least think about what they're casually Othering and the effect that has on both their perspective and the perspective of people around them.

I wonder...several of the people I saw posting about their stuff complained that they weren't getting any fundraising. But...if your underlying attitude isn't innately empathetic to refugees and people who aren't like you, then people probably aren't going to take your sudden desire to 'help' refugees very seriously.

The cancer eating the heart of Australian democracy
Hint: it begins with R, and ends with ‘upert Murdoch’.

In Texas Senate Vote, Cruz Barely leads O’Rourke
They say that Texas may no longer be as red as red can be. Wouldn’t it be nice?

America soured on my multiracial family
The abuse started off with well-meaning leftists, and over time, switched to racial purity right-wingers.

The end of citrus season
A chinotto recipe.

Dear American citizens; have you checked that you're registered to vote? A good time to check registration deadlines in your state and whether your registration has endured.

(Also, I've heard tell of people who were on the voting roll a month ago and now aren't. So even if you think you are, CHECK AGAIN.)

They really do make voting difficult in the US. Tuesdays to vote. Voter registration. Checking.

Next time I vote, I think I'm going to livestream it to show just how easy it is in Australia. Saturdays from 8am to 6pm! Local polling places everywhere! Walk up and give your name! No ID required!

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I replied to someone on twitter this morning. They were claiming that saying there was racism in Australia was unreasonable because everyone was 'getting along'.

Frankly, 'getting along' is an incredibly low bar for interaction. A slave and their master 'get along'. An abused wife and her asshole husband 'get along'. And non-white people and white people 'get along' so long as the non-white people don't do anything that make the white people feel uncomfy. But bring rights and respect and representation into it, and HELL TO THE NOPE.

The response was longer than that (I was annoyed; he claimed there were so many Chinese in Sydney it was impossible for Australia to be racist), but that was the tail end of it.

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Last day at this workplace today. It will probably be pretty quiet. (Famous last words.)

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Lost hockey again yesterday. They got three short corners and an easy roll-in, and unfortunately two of those short corner goals were off one of our defenders' sticks. (She was really down about that.) We picked up in the last 15 minutes, but it was too late by then. I did score a goal - our only goal - off a short corner. Deflected a hard hit at an angle past the goalie and into the backboard.

Coach is not happy. We're not exactly happy either. But I'm wondering if the...lackadaisical play of some of our team is attributable to a lack of encouragement on the coach's part. Also, a couple of players spend rather too much time questioning the umpire and not enough time playing the game. (It doesn't help that the coach does that, too. Often loud enough for the umpire to hear.)

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I'm going to have to switch to solo track for my marvel_bang. I'm 11K in and have only just reached the first turning point. There are at least two more to come...

So I finally listened to this all the way through. DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN ABOVE.

asfka;sjflasjfaslkfjasldkfjashfahfshjkgh;hdk

There are so many brilliant nuances to this that I have internal flappy hands.

From King George channelling an abusive vibe, to the musical themes, to Angelica understanding her responsibilities and desires and knowing where her duty lies, to Eliza erasing herself from the narrative, to Burr's frustration with being bested again and again and again, to, oh, ALL OF IT.

The thing about this - as an Australian who hadn't the foggiest idea about who the hell Alexander Hamilton is or was and couldn't really care less - is that the musical is no more about American politics than Hamlet is about Danish royalty.

It's about humanity - about people - about individuals, personalities, their flaws, the pressures that comes upon them, their strengths and how they use those - or don't. It's about everyone having their own story, their own reasons for what they do. And it's about life and death and all the messy stuff that happens in between.

Which is why it will do well translated to other countries in the same way that Les Mis will - because what audiences understand is not the circumstances of history, but the circumstances of humanity.

And yes, it will be better if the cast remains primarily non-white in the lead roles in places like Australia and the UK. Not because of novelty, but because this story is about people rather than about dead white people - and I think that needs to be recognised. They've already given musical theatre a kick in that direction with Hamilton, now it would be good if they continued it.

Incidentally, I remember watching Wicked for the first time - in San Francisco with my friend Abby - and Fiyero was black and had the most amazing voice. When it came to Sydney and Fiyero was cast white, I was distinctly nonplussed. I mean, white!Fiyero was great, but somehow it warmed something in me to see this guy as the good hero, loved by two women, who was kind enough to agree to marry one who really wanted to marry him when he was quietly in love with the other who wasn't attainable.

Or maybe it's just that the 'agreeing to marry someone they don't love' is a storyline that's usually handed to the woman and - me being me - the reversal of the trope just appeals. This is me, after all.

Plus: Indian-Pakistani Hobbits. Go look it up if you have questions.

A very interesting and eye-opening re-perspective on what I think of as "proper English".

David Foster Wallace and the foreign tongue of Standard Written English

Okay, so, I wasn't going to say Happy Chinese New Year to my f-lists.

Then I went around to my parents' house for dinner and discovered my mother in the middle of a storm of cooking.

THEY'RE MAKING CHA SIU BAU, PEOPLE! BBQ PORK BUNS! THOSE SOFT WHITE FLUFFY BUNS WITH THE RED PORK INSIDE THAT YOU GET IN THE BAMBOO STEAMERS AT YUM CHA. MAKING. FROM SCRATCH. OMG.

A day ago, if you had asked me if my family was traditional, I would have said, "Um, no. Not really." I may have to rethink that. CHA SIU BAU OMG.

There's also tsai (I don't know what else it's called - it's an entirely vegetarian dish: mushrooms, thin rice noodles, assorted black funguses, this...tofu sheet stuff) and tzin dui (deep fried dough balls with red bean past centres, rolled in sesame seeds). And roast pork belly. With the crackling. Which is sort-of Chinese BBQ.

It's kinda funny, I s'pose. I didn't participate in Potluck because I feel like a) no-one's interested in my Chinese identity posts, b) have nothing of any importance to add to the race + SJ thoughts required of such collections. And yet, come Chinese New Year, here's my mum and stepdad cooking up a very Chinese storm for a big family dinner tonight. Which makes me feel I should have something, and yet I don't, other than food porn and reminiscences about festal eating.

One day very soon, I'll have to pin my mum down and have her look over my shoulder while I cook these delicacies. I think that Easter may have to be it - we have a five-day public holiday during that time.

Anyway, KUNG HEI FAAT CHOI everyone!