listening to jack johnson always makes me want to watch surfing documentaries. step into liquid is my favorite of them, as it is *gorgeous*.
anyway.
The main serious post I keep waffling on making is a little bit about bandom (and right there I've lost a bunch of people) but it is mostly about race and how one of the things that BUGS THE SHIT OUT OF ME about the way fandom treats race is the disappearing of people of color and *especially* the disappearing of biracial people in the larger context of discussion persons and characters of color.
Because see, I'm still really pissed about some comments that were made last year (I can hold a grudge like you wouldn't BELIEVE) about there being no people of color in bandom (
Pete Wentz would like to disagree. As would Travis, Ray, Gabe, Alex Suarez, Matt Cortez, Disashi, Brendon, Tyga and others) because they're there. They're *obvious*. FFS, STOP SAYING THEY ARE WHITE. STOP IT. *breathes* In terms of diversity of race/religion/sexuality, bandom *wins forever* over any other popular fandom I've seen. FOREVER. Black, Latino, A/PI, Jewish, atheist, Catholic, undivulged flavor of Christian, mostly straight but NOT ENTIRELY, bi and out, allies and supporters, actual conversations about sexuality and the perceptions thereof. This fandom owns. Also, Greta and Vicky T and Maja do not have penises.
Um. Hey, apparently I started making this post! But okay, here's why it bugs me and I will try to leave it at that: by calling them white, by making the assumption that they are white without bothering to look, people are basically rendering them invisible. And this is doubly troubling to me because for a lot of them, we're talking about people who are biracial and that's got a whole passel of problems that go along with it.
The other thing that just bugs the shit out of me is the continued European assertion that they don't consider latinos to be of color. That's nice. THEY DO. What they perceive trumps what you perceive. Period. And all of the annoyances at the way Americans frame the discussion of race in American terms and all the different contexts in the world doesn't change that latinos from this particular side of the globe DO NOT CONSIDER THEMSELVES WHITE. There are *other* issues at work with which, frankly, I'm not even remotely qualified to talk about , but the primary issue for me is that they are not white. You can say all day long that they would be considered white in Europe and that's nice, but that's problematic in its own way. Other people than me who are smarter and more articulate should discuss this.
(somewhat relatedly, I got an email a while ago about the Jesus Walks vid which basically said that if Gunn's arc had been anything like that on the show, they would have kept watching. Here's the thing: that *was* Gunn's arc on the show. That vid was me attempting to show everyone else the show I had *always been watching*. It was there for everyone to see, Gunn was AMAZING and it made me sad every day in that fandom that people were being all SPIKE and ZOMG ANGEL IS BEIGE and ZOMG LINDSEY and meanwhile my darling was off kicking ass and negotiating the difference between the greater good and uh, what Angel thought was the greater good -- opening an orphange = good! being emo about how you're not sure you're doing good = lame and boy was there more to talk about with moral ambiguity and beigeness there. ANYWAY. This post is more than long enough and I need to get ready for work.)
There's an excellent post here that talks about some of the same issues:
http://ohinternets.livejournal.com/38940.html in Psych fandom.
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cidercupcakes mostly, and 
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