You've Got that 100% Assbackwards...

One narrative that pisses me off until my eyelid twitches is when privileged leftists dismiss concerns of oppression, imperialism, etc. with shit like "after the revolution, there'll be no X".  After the Revolution, there'll be no sexism.  After the Revolution, there'll be no racism.  After the Revolution, there'll be no imperialism.  And so on.

The thing is though, that they have it totally backwards.  While it is true that a fully Marxist system (in the opinion of, well a Marxist) is one without any oppression or social class distinctions, the entire point of the Revolution (whatever means you think are acceptable there, democratic change, direct action, violent resistance, etc. you can't really be a leftist and not think it's necessary) is to try and end oppression.  It's a trivial truth that in a fully Marxist society sexism will not exist, for example, because eliminating sexism is required to have a fully Marxist society.  You can't have a fully Marxist society and not have gotten rid of your racism, sexism, imperialism, anti-queer oppression, etc.  It's not that we will have the Revolution and then all oppression will magically end, the Revolution IS the struggle to end oppressions.  Any Revolution that does not seek to and fully strive to end all forms of oppression is not a fully Marxist Revolution, any end state that could be reached while still allowing oppression and class distinctions is no Marxism.

So don't you privileged leftists dare say that oppression will be over after the Revolution to dismiss concerns of other leftists in regards to specific types or systems of oppression.  That is so absolutely backwards.  Ending all oppression is the goal of the Revolution, it is the aim of the Revolution.  Marxism is at its very core supposed to be a theory for dismantling oppression.  Any way that you fail to do so is a failure to achieve total Revolution and total Marxism.  Ending sexism, racism, imperialism, cissexism, anti-queer oppression, classism, etc. are necessary parts of the Revolution, not potential fringe benefits. 

Starting to Collect a List of Non-negative Fat Anime Characters

So, I have been watching Accel World, and really, really enjoying having a short fat protagonist in an anime.  I also find it interesting that the rest of the characters remain the more common long, thin shape. 

  

That's Haruyuki Arita, third from the left, our sweet but insecure protagonist.  

As positive fat characters are so rare in anime, I thought I would start making up a list.   The criteria are relatively straightforward, the character has to be fat, chubby, or heavyset; the character has to not be all about anti-fat jokes or be a villain; the character has to appear in more than one episode/have a name/have a number of lines (in other words, they have to actually be more than an extra).

Probably the best known fat anime character (with the possible exception of Gluttony from FMA, who is exempted for obvious reasons) is Choji from Naruto.

While Choji is not a villainous character and has some role other than as an 'ew fat' punchline, he is also rather stereotypical, and is used as the butt of jokes around his size on the show.

In no particular order except how they entered my brain, here are a few more non-negative fat anime characters:

Sumiyo Fukabori of Saki, she is a chubby minor side character who is on one of the majong teams

While she might be better classified as stocky rather than fat, I'm going to include Elizabeth Liati from Kenran Butoh Sai The Mars Daybreak.  Liati is the captain of a Martian submarine.

Kugayama Mitsunori of Genshiken, an otaku (like every other character on that show):

Chieko from Kuragehime, lover of dolls and kimonos, excellent seamstress

  Kohto Hirano from High School of the Dead.  This is a very sexist echi anime, and ya'll probably know I'm not a big fan of echi, but I have this zombie obsession...anyways, Hirano fits under the fat and non-negative character category

I did find this discussion over on gaia forums (warning this link is not a safe space regarding size acceptance or body size) but it does not separate negative from non-negative portrayals.  http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/recycle-bin/are-there-any-fat-obese-anime-characters/t.55360301_1/ though it did remind me to add

Kōsaku Tokita from Paprika (which is a feature film, not a series):

Also need to add Daru from Steins Gate, the hacker:

A friend of a friend on twitter recommended this one awhile back (sorry for the late update there, I've been rather sick lately, and the second link they gave has gone dead):

Mao Daidoji (http://myanimelist.net/character/21458/Mao_Daidoji)

Happy May Day

Happy May Day.  

Picture of Emilia Plater

I'm sitting in class and not rebelling, because I need my attendance points.  I've taken too many sick days this semester.

Can you be against feminism without being a misogynist?

I think the answer to this question lies in distinguishing feminism as a set of movements and feminism as an ideal.

There are valid criticisms of feminist movements, and those that genuinely and honestly dislike feminism as a movement because of those things are not necessarily woman haters, and in some cases are anything but.  A non-feminist identified womanist who feels alienated by the history of erasure of woman of color and racism by some sections of the feminist movement is not a misogynist.  A trans woman who criticizes histories of transphobia within certain sections of the feminist movement is not engaging in woman hating solely by doing so.

On the other hand, attacks on feminism qua feminism, as a movement for rights of women, as women's non-inferiority and personhood, etc. are inherently misogynist.  Opposition to the notion that women are full people is misogynist to its very core, assertions that women should be denied bodily autonomy or access to social participation is intrinsically misogynist.  There is no real way to attack the idea of opposition to oppression of women as such and not being a misogynist.

Misogynist anti-feminist love to conflate their intrinsically misogynist attacks on feminism with the not intrinsically misogynist genuine criticisms of various feminist movements, but they are not the same thing at all.  The form, content, and intent of criticisms of feminism absolutely do matter.

If someone says that they do not like feminism because they have experienced a great deal of classism in feminist spaces, that alone does not make them a misogynist or indicate they are a misogynist.  However, those that take issue with feminism because it aims to advocate against sexist oppression, they are simply misogynists.

Oh, Crimes Against Hughs Manatees, You Understand Me So Well

From http://crimesagainsthughsmanatees.tumblr.com/post/7830004306

"How Not To Fight Racism" Response

This is a response to this article http://socialistworker.org/blog/critical-reading/2012/04/05/how-not-fight-racism

            Co-option, flagrant privilege, and denials of oppressive systems are not shows of solidarity.  Solidarity is something that must be done with conscious listening to the needs and wants of the group at issue, and acting only in accordance with those.  Suggesting that you are Trayvon as a white person is totally and absolutely missing the entire point.  It isn’t solidarity, it’s reinforcing the problem.  If you are white, Trayvon was not killed for the ways he may be like you or the white kids in your family, he was killed for the ways in which he is different.  If you need to whiten him and deny that he was a black child, the very reason he was killed, in order to try to “empathize” or “sympathize” with him, then you are supporting the social systems which have led to his death and the deaths of uncounted other young black people and reinforcing the notion that the more black a person is, the less human they are.

            Showing that you oppose the system that killed Trayvon Martin and Troy Davis absolutely requires showing that you have some fucking inkling of the fact that they were killed because they are not white like you.  If that child and that man were white like you, they would not have been killed.  So the fact that you give no pause to announcing that you are them is extremely indicative that you are not acting in solidarity, you are acting because you want to be seen as a ‘good white person’ not because you actually want to end racism.

“Isn’t it possible, even likely, that people protesting racism wearing these t-shirts actually oppose racism and don’t seek to justify it? If not, then everything we do is called into question as possibly its opposite; nothing we do matters, nothing we say or argue has any validity, but must be suspect as meaning its complete opposite.”

          Except that is patently not the argument put forth in the video.  If you cannot think of a single thing to do to oppose racism other than a clueless co-opting t-shirt, you really are not actively working to end racism.  You are engaging in a strawman argument here, nowhere did the person in the video or almost anyone else ever present the argument you are attributing to her.  Her argument was that this specific act, wearing an “I am Trayvon” t-shirt as a white person, reinforces the very racist systems and patterns of thought that lead to the murder in the first place.  Suggesting that if a person says one type of ineffective or oppressive ‘activism’ is invalid then they believe any activism at all is invalid is a patently absurd argument.

“Racism, according to this thinking, is not the result of a ruling class’s need to structure oppression in order to gain profits and spread crappy ideas that divide the working class majority from itself.”

          This is an extremely over-simplistic analysis of the way class systems work.  Racism is a system designed to support the exploitation of black labor and black bodies (as well as the labor and bodies of other people of color) and to justify brutalities against them.  It is not simply some post-hoc attempt to divide the working class, though systematically it is effective in doing so.  Divisiveness is one of the means of perpetuation of the system, it is not the root goal.  Oppressive social systems interact with each other in people in complex ways, your analysis erases the ways in which people face multiple forms of marginalization and oppression.  There exists decades of scholarship on these matters from marginalized women around sexist oppression, bell hooks, Kimberle Krenshaw…do a bit of reading critical feminist race theory and black feminism. 

  “Third, according to her “white privilege” argument, there are no distinctions between whites in positions of power and the majority without.”

          This is not what white privilege means, and there are libraries of scholarship on that matter.  Are you being deliberately clueless, or are you just this grossly ignorant of critical race theory and black scholarship around racism?

 “She refers to “the system,” but has no class outlook in which to analyze how the system works and in whose interests. Because if all white people benefit— which includes the majority of people on food stamps, on unemployment and living in poverty in the United States — then these benefits are rather illusory, aren’t they?”

This is flat out false.  As a blond haired, blue eyed person who grew up in poverty and has done anti-racist education with poor white people, it is hard to even begin to say how wrong this statement is.  Poor white people benefit materially from white privilege. Granted, not in the exact same ways as rich white people (again, see intersectionality).  Poor white people find employment easier than their black low income peers.  This is true even when the white person has a criminal record and the black person does not.  Employment discrimination against black people is rampant at low wage levels as well, which feeds the extremely high unemployment rates in black communities.  Poor white people find housing easier than their poor black peers, because housing discrimination against black people is rampant at all income levels.   Poor black students are beaten and punished within the education system more than poor white students.   Poor black people are murdered by the police more than poor white people.  Poor black communities are over-policed and subject to police search polices more than poor white communities.  Poor white students get MORE need based scholarships than poor black students, both by numbers and percentages.   In every area of life, poor black people face additional discrimination on top of what poor white people face.  And that’s not even getting into wider colonialist systematic benefits and damages.

All poor people get a lot of horrible things thrown at them, that’s indisputable, but black poor people and white poor people do not face the same social realities.  Racism and racist oppression are very real in these communities.  White poor people get advantages due to being white.   They get preference in jobs, education, and housing over other poor people.  It is a mistake to say that because poor white people would ultimately be better off if they were willing to trade advantages over poor people of color for class solidarity that poor white people do not materially benefit from white privilege and racist systems.  

“This video reflects a politically confused way of talking about race as if it were simply about bad ideas in people’s heads and not conscious structures of oppression kept in place by the 1% in the interests of the 1%.”

This is a false dichotomy.   There is no reason to think that these two types of racist thinking can’t and don’t coexist.  Racism involves both intentional exploitation and complex systems of social relationships that influence thinking in often unconscious ways.  Social systems of consciousness and understanding are deeply ingrained ways of knowing and perceiving the world, trained into us usually from birth.  The way rich people look at poor people and perceive our lives is certainly not all about conscious decisions to fuck over poor people, though some of it is, it is about ways of thinking and knowing that they have been taught their entire lives.  That all of us have been taught our entire lives.  I am pretty sure that there was no conscious classism board that sat down and handed my mother a curriculum to use to ingrain in us the idea that we should see our lives as shameful because of being poor.  Racism works in similar, though not always directly comparable, ways.  BOTH explicit and implicit bias play a role, BOTH intentionally and unintentional discrimination and systems play a role.

And it’s just flat out racist to suggest that the problems of racism dividing poor communities are found in black people refusing to accept racism and not in white people refusing to not be racist.  Which, for your information, is also the point that even the upperclass ‘talented tenth’ theorist Dubois was making:

“So long as the Southern white laborers could be induced to prefer poverty to equality with the Negro, just so long was a labor movement in the South made impossible.”

Then, as now, too many poor white people chose short term benefits over poor people of color rather than long term benefits of class unity.  You are blaming the victims of racism, he is blaming the perpetrators.  Denying racism and putting the burden on black people to swallow the racism of poor white people (who are not more racist per se than rich white people, but racist in ordinary amounts for white people, in other words, there’s plenty of racism) does not build class solidarity.  In fact, it does the exact opposite.  It trains us not to be critical about the ways in which different sections of poor communities interact.  It trains us to be okay with watching brutality against certain sections of poor people.  It trains us to not critique the ways in which these other oppressive systems are linked together.  Rather than telling poor black people that they should not address racism against them or the ways in which racism harms their communities, building class solidarity would be building an understanding in white poor people that racism is a brutal oppressive system which they should neither tolerate nor participate in.  If we want to search for leftist models of building anti-racist class solidarity, we would be better served to look for guidance to the work of another black man murdered by a racist system, Fred Hampton, of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense than we would be to look to the dismal failures of some early leftist unions on issues of racist policies around black and Asian workers.

Anyways, look, we could have a complex discussion about racialized classism, classist racism, intersectionality, and racial dynamics within poor communities, but this article is not showing even a passing familiarity with the basics of this discussion.

The only thing this article got right is that white people should not wear Zimmerman shirts, but not for the reasons you suggest, but rather because without further context, it might be assumed that a person wearing such a shirt was supportive of Zimmerman’s actions, rather than critiquing social relationships.  However, as a friend of mine noted, you do not have to wear either shirt, you can just wear a regular shirt and participate in work around these issues.  Again, seriously, if an erasing t-shirt is the only idea you can come up with for combating racism and showing solidarity around racist violence, you are already failing at both of those tasks.

“Perhaps the most telling thing about this “white privilege” argument is that many radicals have had their sights for justice set so low that it has come to be thought of as a privilege not to be gunned down in the night on a snack errand while wearing a hoodie because of the color of your skin. Isn’t that simply a human right?”

It shouldn’t be a privilege, just like healthcare shouldn’t be a privilege, but right now, it most certainly is.  White people have the benefit over black people of not being murdered because of their race by our racist system. Welcome to reality.

Brief Reviews of a Few of the Season's New Anime

May contain mild spoilers, only addresses the first episode though

Haiyoru!  Nyaruko-san.

 This anime did not wow me at all.  I found the plot somewhat unoriginal (violent women protecting weak guys who they love is in at the moment).  The background music was annoying, the lead guy's voice actor was solid, the animation looks nice.  Okay, this was supposed to be a comedy, but the humor just isn't doing it for me and I'm bored with it, obviously.

Grade: C- Though, to be fair, I didn't find it funny.  It is possible that its humor may suit others better. 

Saki Achiga-Hen

 I'll admit to starting out with a favorable bias on this one.  I really enjoyed the first season.  So, I think I am prone to give this show a lot more leeway to pick up than I might others.  Like the first series, this is a female centered story, with close female friends and teammates interacting in very positive ways.  You really feel for these girls and their friendships.  That said, it could use a bit more of the fast paced majong tournament scenes that were so expertly directed in the first series and kept it with a more upbeat pace.  I generally prefer a faster pace to the slower "slice of life" type of anime.  Still, I think that this episode managed to hold attention well enough, and established relationships and basic background.  I'm optimistic on this one, especially as the first series had so much to recommend it (including a positively depicted female side character who was fat, which is a rare thing in anime).

Grade B.  As I said, I want some more of the faster paced scenes that spiced up the first series, which was a solid Grade A.

Hiiro no Kakera

Your standard reverse harem with a fantasy backdrop.  On the negative side, the better reverse harems generally depend a lot on the strength of their characters, especially the heroines, and this one's didn't stand out. On the other hand...bishies and cute magic fox pets.  I strongly approve of those things. 

Grade B.  Because bishies and cute magic fox pets, that's why.  I make no apologies for my (bad) tastes.

Nazo no Kanojo X

I must admit, the opening scenes of this one turned me off.  I have a policy to not watch echi.  It pisses me off far too much.  I was worried that the mention of sex from the get go might be a sign of echi style.  I was pleasantly surprised to find out otherwise.  Unlike the fairly obvious and cheap objectification that is so common in echi, this anime depicted attraction in a sort of awkward somewhat kinky at times way that I found sort of adorable in general.  I thought was actually a teen love story that I found I could relate to.  It's not oh, huge water balloon boobs sexy attraction, it's you are so gorgeous it takes my breath away even when you have drool on your chin intense teen crush attraction.  And the heroine is weird.  Not just "cutely quirky", actually weird.  Burst out laughing randomly in class and roll around on the floor weird.  I am liking this relationship enough that I find it carries what otherwise might seem like a very contrived background plot with the sci-fi spit addiction stuff.  It also had me laughing at times.  The spit addiction even sort of works as a metaphor for those intense confusing adolescent desires.  My biggest criticism of this anime would be that the lead guy engaged in borderline creepy behavior, not rapey type creepy by any means, so it's a smaller concern at the moment.  I really enjoyed this episode and I look forward to the rest of the series, though I hope it keeps up the good work and doesn't let me down.

Grade A.  Really, of all of the new anime I have watched so far for this season (which isn't all of them, to be fair), this one stood out the most and was the most genuinely entertaining.  I really like that this anime can address sexuality and attraction without falling into those old suckass echi pitfalls.