In this episode, we talk about topics ranging from guns and droughts to language and history.
This episode is not sponsored.
Hosted By:
Justin (xe/xem) - https://www.justingrays.org/
Nat MN (they/them)
Sarah (she/her)
Content Warning - Mentions of:
Death
Guns
NRA
Police
Ronald Reagan
Second Amendment
As longtime listeners may be aware, the usual format of this podcast is for me and two or three of my co-hosts to talk about society and current events from a perspective other than your stereotypical podcaster - that is, not from a cishet white male. But another thing that I’ve been meaning to do is to sit down and talk to fellow POC folx in the geek community about our experiences.
Our special guest this week is local geek Kareem Abdelrahman.
In this episode, we discuss topics ranging from conventions and politics to COVID-19 and memes.
This episode is not sponsored. We are not medical providers, and nothing we say should be construed as medical advice.
FaeBun (she/her)
Justin (xe/xem) - https://www.justingrays.org/
Michelle Chmura (she/her) - https://twitter.com/avocadabro & https://residentialrobot.tumblr.com/
Content Warning - Mentions of:
Aging
COVID-19
Death
Fibromyalgia
Military
Physical Therapy
Richard Dawkins
Weight & Weight Loss
The 2020 Super Bowl Halftime Show seems to have ruffled some feathers. I personally didn’t care about Super Bowl LIV until a couple of days after it happened - that was when I started seeing commentary from various folx calling out people who have been having “righteous anger” about Jennifer López and Shakira’s halftime performance. To be honest, I still don’t care about football or the Super Bowl itself [Note 1] [Note 2]; I only liked the beauty, pageantry, and importance of this particular halftime performance.
It took over a day before I saw any negative posts about the halftime show appear in my social media - in fact, I only saw one directly. The condensed version of the one negative post said: “We want women to not be seen as sex objects… yet we celebrate during half time woman[sic] in almost nothing doing strip club moves” and went on to say that men of “integrity” chose a better path than to watch the show [Note 3]. It was strongly implied that the men of “integrity” were some flavor of Christians - Assemblies of God [Note 4], I think. This was a troubling sentiment, and I responded with:
So, we should blame women for men not treating people like people? That doesn't make sense. And what about the Latinx kids in cages singing BORN IN THE USA and LETS GET LOUD surrounded by an illumined Venus symbol? Did you notice the foot work? Did you notice the rope Shakira tied around her body while belly dancing? Everything done at this event has a far, FAR deeper meaning. Not to mention the multilingual songs, the Puerto Rican flag, that sex work is legitimate work and the pole wasn’t about you? This righteous anger is very weird, I find. "Here's what appropriate dress is" with no concept of culture or history, with nothing said about kids in cages or the policing of brown bodies. Depressing.
One person took exception to my saying that sex work is legitimate work, and made her feelings clear about it, expanding on them on her own page. Unfortunately, everything said was either based on a lie, was a half-truth, or was the legacy of white people removing POC agency. I was initially incensed, but then instead of engaging directly I decided to go ahead and write this.
When I made my initial comment on the Super Bowl post, I had not yet seen the entire performance; only clips, stills, and other people's comments. Since then, I have seen the performance in its entirety. I was absolutely floored by it. It was an amazing experience. It also made me even more disturbed by the comment that I saw.
I hope that anybody who reads this will have the opportunity to share it and help spread knowledge - stop the shaming and misinformation.
Androids & AI in sci-fi disrupt the idea of a gender binary: what purpose is there for an android and/or AI to have gender? Could an android/AI be trans, gender-fluid, and/or non-binary? How will that affect how we as a society see gender as a construct? Participants: Naomi Kritzer (mod), Leigh Hellman, Justin Edward Grays, Nate Bird, Elliot Besmann
Content Warnings:
Mention of sexual harassment towards AI.
References to the dehumanization of indigenous peoples.
CONvergence 2018 was July 5-8, 2018, 2 months ago now. I had meant to write these posts shortly after CVG ended, but as I’ve explained in previous posts, I have been dealing with broken technology, depression, and other things that have been occupying my time. This year, the theme was “Natural Twenty: Celebrating The First 20 Years Of CONvergence” - for the full archive of all twenty years of CONvergence, click here.
On Friday the 6th, I was a panelist on the following panels: “The Orville Fan Panel” and “When is Star Trek Space Opera?”. For Part 2, I present to you the audio recording of the Star Trek panel as well as my additional written thoughts about what we discussed. Listen to the raw recording here.
Maya Angelou read her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at the first inauguration of President Bill Clinton on January 20, 1993, becoming the second poet in history and the first African American and woman to read a poem at a presidential inauguration. The poem's themes are change, inclusion, responsibility, and role of both the President and the citizenry in establishing economic security.
In April 1957, a month after Ghana liberated itself from British colonial rule, Rev. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a speech entitled "The Birth of a New Nation." He used Ghana's battle against colonialism and it's significance in representing the hard work that is necessary to bring about desegregation.
A week ago, I attended MarsCon 2018 and was on 10 panels. I also attended a couple of other panels. Two such panels I was able to take notes on: "Mysterious Minnesota: Unwrapping Urban Legends and Ghostly Tales from the Dead" and "Planetarium Star Show."
The other day, I saw a very fascinating answer on Quora to the question “Why does the NPR station have so much propaganda against Trump?” It was much more elegant and detailed than I have ever been able to be when it comes to explaining that it is not NPR who is generating propaganda against 45 [Note 1], but rather his spinmasters making a non-profit station seem like a tool of propaganda to his loyal adherents.
Before getting into the answer that I first found to be rather fascinating, I would like to highlight a few points that have been put out there in response to this question. A number of people who have answered the question have pointed out that NPR relies on public funding, and that stories about bias by NPR are intended to destroy support for ongoing funding of public radio and television. NPR does have a soft bias, yes, but public media is centrist due to the fact that it is public - to keep its funding, it has to remain centrist.
On April 3, 1968, at the Mason Temple (Church of God in Christ Headquarters) in Memphis, Tennessee, Rev. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his final speech. On the following day, King was assassinated. He was 39 years old.
The speech primarily concerns the Memphis Sanitation Strike. King calls for unity, economic actions, boycotts, and nonviolent protest, while challenging the United States to live up to its ideals. At the end of the speech, he discusses the possibility of an untimely death.
Both the Democrats and the Republics had factions to contend with, shaping how the parties attempted to govern and what was considered to be important issues. It is important to remember that not all members of a party have the same beliefs, especially in the 19th century - issues were not nearly as partisan then as they are now [Note 1]. The factions of today (Centerist/Moderate, Conservative, Liberal, Libertarian, Progressive) are not the names of yesteryear - the names that were in use at the time may be a bit confusing. There were also Third and Fourth parties at the time, which also were a factor in the political landscape, but the major players at the time were the Democrats and Republicans.
There is a distinction between sex and gender: sex is a categorization that is determined by the anatomy of one’s reproductive system, chromosomes, genitalia, hormones, and secondary sex characteristics, whereas gender is a social role based off of the sex of a person or their own identification through self-awareness. Both are constructs, malleable, and are subjected to societal standards, but they are not interchangeable. This post will talk about sex and how it is a construct.
Back in June, a friend of mine said “I really think it's time for the Democrats to reclaim Lincoln from the Republican Party.” It was quickly pointed out that Lincoln was indeed a Republican [4], which is factually correct, but ignores the differences in the politics and policies of the Republican Party of the 1860s and the Republican Party of the 2010s. When looking at political parties of any era, especially when comparing parties of said eras, it is important to take into account the political realities of the time, the stances of the parties, the viewpoints of the members of the parties, and what the parties were voting for.
Almost two weeks ago, I posted a blog called "The Invisible Generation" that spoke on how those born between 1977 and 1987 are neither GenX nor Millennial, but rather a generation of their own. What I didn't do at the time, though, was propose what I believe to be generational lines:
Back on 03Oct2016, Jeff Hargarten wrote an article titled "Could Minnesota ever become a battleground state?" After reading the article, I had this response for him:
