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I really appreciate all of the research that went into this video, and the way that it lays out all the little nefarious ways racism (specifically against african americans) is embedded in american culture and inadvertently celebrated. One point I think is often glazed over in conversations around racism by people who are against outright aggressions but pretty blasé in being critical of where their own thoughts and actions stem from is the evolution of culture from a colonial and imperial background. We really didn’t just spawn in the year 2025 out of a vacuum, and just as much as culture has evolved, so has racism.
May 13, 2025
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was just listening to sleep by godspeed you! black emperor and the monologue at the beginning really struck me with a lot i've been thinking about lately
about how america is a kind of corrosive force. its people (unless they're native americans who it actively seeks to eradicate) don't have any traditions, rituals, old knowledge passed down — their ancestors may have had these, but everything was ironed out and forgotten when they had to assimilate, not into a dominant culture but into an absence of one
but little pockets of uniquely american experiences and stories have arisen in so many places and i'm really interested in finding them. like that monologue. but with the internet homogenizing culture those bubbles dissolve, and gentrification displaces the people who built them etc. it all feels like a drive towards nothing culture.
but i guess what i want to ask is, what's your culture? have you held on to something that's yours? made something new? how can we make sure these things aren't lost? do you have any links to videos/stories/media that this makes you think of?
Mar 18, 2025
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On the History of AAVE/Black American English: https://rsc-src.ca/en/voices/%E2%80%98it-don%E2%80%99t-be-like-that-now%E2%80%99-%E2%80%94-english-history-african-american-english
"The Bronx Slave Market": https://viewpointmag.com/2015/10/31/the-bronx-slave-market-1950/
Greenwashing & Climate Creative Accountability: https://e360.yale.edu/features/phantom-forests-tree-planting-climate-change
Relationality and Indigeneity: https://sci-hub.st/https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14744740211029287
5d ago
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We love looking backwards to try to get in touch with ourselves, our history, traditional ways of doing things. I think this is a noble pursuit but the pace of cycling through eras in the trend cycle for example has grown increasingly rapid to the point that it feels like we’re endlessly regurgitating everything all at once, without context.
Rediscovering the past can look like going back to pre-industrial ways of living which is a beautiful thing to strive toward. In a lot of ways, we’ve also abandoned a lot of traditional ways of doing things in favor of methods that are easier, faster, and simpler, not necessarily better.
On the other hand, one of the three essential elements to fascism identified by Jason Stanley is invoking a mythic past to manufacture nostalgia for a more traditional, patriarchal, and racially pure past, which is I think what we’re seeing with a lot of people who romanticize 1950s Americana as some kind of utopian traditional society.
Carl Sagan said:
“In general, human societies are not innovative. They are hierarchical and ritualistic. Suggestions for change are greeted with suspicion: they imply an unpleasant future variation in ritual and hierarchy: an exchange of one set of rituals for another, or perhaps for a less structured society with fewer rituals. And yet there are times when societies must change.”
“As a consequence of the enormous social and technological changes of the last few centuries, the world is not working well. We do not live in traditional and static societies. But our government, in resisting change, act as if we did. Unless we destroy ourselves utterly, the future belongs to those societies that, while not ignoring the reptilian and mammalian parts of our being, enable the characteristically human components of our nature to flourish; to those societies that encourage diversity rather than conformity; to those societies willing to invest resources in a variety of social, political, economic and cultural experiments, and prepared to sacrifice short-term advantage for long-term benefit; to those societies that treat new ideas as delicate, fragile and immensely valuable pathways to the future.”
So I think we need forward-thinking transformational change, though it may not be as comfortable as nostalgia…
Jan 15, 2025
Top Recs from @ugliestbinch
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Why not go through the process of blending those images yourself? Why not use process as an experiment? Why AI? What part are you playing? What makes it yours?
I think AI is impersonal. I think it is unethical when it has relied on the theft of actual people’s actual physical (and because of the nature of art, often time emotional) labor. I also think it is unnecessary in creating art. I also think the environmental impacts are atrocious. I also think AI’s biggest supporters are being maliciously ignorant because it’s a fun new toy.
Is it ease? Is it efficiency? People talk about accessibility as if children don’t use crayons and stickers! As if graffiti artists don’t use postal labels as sticker, as if sand mandalas don’t exist, as if cardboard and tape aren’t in over abundance.
Apr 15, 2025
May 20, 2025
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My name is Shawna. I responded “oh my god! My name is Shawn, too!” Then stuttered through saying “wait, no, that’s not my name.” and since I was so anxious I just rambled for way to long about the difference between our names.
May 19, 2025