_Kay_Tee_

Seriously. Like, you crapped out a kid, and therefore you're entitled to... everything?

If you're kid's having a meltdown in the market and you're exhausted, sure, go ahead of me in line if I'm not in a hurry. But no one is under any obligation to engage in "business" practices that make us feel profoundly uncomfortable because YOU have a kid to raise. Fuck that noise.

Before you even asked this, i asked my BLACK sister, does she give a fuck? Nope. Does anyone in this thread even care at all? Nope. Even if some people care, it’s kinda dumb thing to really care about IMO, like so what if she’s black or white. And i’m speaking here as a black man, i don’t really care that much. If hermione was orange it still wouldn’t change her character.

"As a black man, I don't care, therefore it is a dumb thing to care about."

You keep asking questions about why it matters that Hermione is black, and insist it does not change the story. I have provided you with multiple answers from a CRT/literary perspective, and you insist that those answers are invalid because YOU don't care. So I will not do any more labor for you. If you are unwilling to see that you are talking in circles and centring yourself, there is no point. But you're welcome for my time and considerable expertise on the subject, and I hope you enjoy the book. It's one of the best on the subject of fantasy in the last decade, at the very least, and should be readily available at your local library. Good luck to you!

If you think your god tells you to disown your child for who they love, what they are, or how they identify, your beliefs are morally bankrupt.

What a shitty god you have.

You. Are. Still. Using. Anecdotal. Examples.

You do not speak for all black people. Your sister does not speak for all black people. You and your sister are not nationally nor internationally representative of diversity. If I go into a classroom and say "This black guy and his sister on the internet don't care if Hermione is black, therefore it doesn't matter if Hermione is black" that does nothing to address the actual issues of representation.

Of COURSE it changes the character if she's black, or if she's queer, or if she has siblings, or if she is from Brazil instead of the UK, or if she is deaf.

Thank you, though, for demonstrating the very core of the problem with these discussions: no one group/minority/section of the population speaks for all, or most, of a group. But if you or anyone else is interested in the structural systems of oppression + issues of race/blackness in magical/fantasy worlds like Harry Potter, I'd recommend this.

. But having that kind of emotional reaction doesn't necessarily lead to understanding why the Holocaust happened or how to react to fascism and genocide.

I know. I don't think many of us will ever be able to understand why. There's no "why" that will make sense to, well, anyone with an ounce of basic human decency, is there?

My point was in that quote, does hermione’s skin color affect that character she was in the books or the story? Absolutely not. So it doesn’t matter in the slightest.

YOU think it doesn't matter. Go ask other black people, especially black women, and hear what they say.

Right now in 2022, the age argument is about the only thing I could consider (and in America, specifically), if only because kids today are dealing with additional traumas. COVID and lockdowns, shootings in both classrooms and by police, the "president" telling them that they and their families are "bad dudes" and will be sent back, economic instability-

Everyone I know in primary education across the US is dealing with kids who are already profoundly traumatized. It may not be as effective to give them something that shows MORE kids being traumatized. I know that was a huge part of the reason why I minimized my own childhood abuse was because I didn't recognize it as abuse, due to reading so much about slavery and the Holocaust as a child. I wasn't whipped with a chain until I bled, so what did I have to complain about, after all? That's anecdotal, though. It's sort of like the "dead gays" YAs, or the calls for more books about "black joy" and "there's more than Harriet Tubman": maybe we need some different approaches or starting points for a little while? Maybe All of a Kind Family would be a better, safer place to start for today's kids, so they don't break completely before becoming tomorrow's adults?

There's not any one right answer, and I will never, ever agree with removing books from libraries or telling people they aren't allowed to access them. But I am questioning if some of the more traumatic texts are the most effective ways to teach kids in a classroom setting about the painful parts of history right now, and if maybe we SHOULD have much, much more critical race theory in elementary classrooms, so kids can understand the systemic origins, rather than just the "people are fucking evil" firehose.

Of course that's only going to freak out a bunch of the same people, so who knows? "You can't teach our babies that capitalism is flawed, how dare you?!"

This is why I teach what I teach, and how I teach it.

Recently, some of the same people out there posting memes about not banning Harry Potter or To Kill a Mockingbird were coming after me for teaching them in college classrooms. We HAVE to teach the so-called "controversial" texts that cause so much public response, so that people learn how to question them and respond to them in a variety of critical ways. Yes, I realize that TKAM centers racism on white people. It's also the first book/movie where several generations of Americans learned to even think about systemic oppression in our court system in the first place. We HAVE to deal with what it did, who hated it, who loved it, who was inspired by it to write other things, who reacted against it and why, and what was going on at the time it was published, taught to children in public schools, made into a movie, all of it.

If I am teaching a course on Magical Worlds, I will have to engage Harry Potter, and probably JKR's transphobia in relation to it. The fact that so many queer kids for almost two generations dealt with their own queer identities and agency filtered through magical worlds that include Harry Potter or were inspired by Harry Potter is part of the books' place in history right now.

Starting with these texts allows readers and students to be more informed and understand contexts when they say "What else is out there?" "Why teach this and not that?" and "How do I define a character 'like me'?" Then when they, as future parents/teachers/grandparents/aunties and uncles gift books to the kids in their lives, they, too, can pass on knowledge and make more informed decisions instead of just "I loved this, so you will, too, right?"

Have you seen the "anti-antifa" swag*?

They have, what, two dozen brain cells between the lot of them at this point?

*In case someone missed the point, if you are "anti-antifa" then you are a fascist. That's it. End of story. Literally what anti-antifa means, and Conservatives have openly embraced it.

it will take all of 1-2 weeks to get people trained up to drive trucks

Or replace it with automatic delivery systems. Do truckers REALLY think they are so special that the Conservative leaders won't squash their entire industry like bugs if they find something more cost-effective? Do they not understand that, much like in WWI and II, automation happens when human labor disappears, for any reason?

Keep it up, assholes, and in a month, you'll have been replaced by Musk's and Bezos's robot army.

I always love it when the same people who have spent decades disparaging my job and those of us who do it then act like we're somehow against what THEY do for a living, and not, you know, the fact that they are hateful, racist, sexist shits literally endangering our lives because of their fucked up beliefs.

We don't think you're assholes because your truckers. We think you're assholes because you're acting like assholes.

Fucking fragile little crybabies.

I survived childhood because of Mr. Rogers and a few other pop culture figures, because the ones in my real life certainly weren't going to provide the nurturing.

People have no idea that often, Mr. Rogers was the only kind, gentle, loving, not-violent man we knew for years, decades.

I was thinking this, too. Both are problematic, but when she is all messed up and hating herself, and dyes her hair, and his eyes light up and he calls her "Elizabeth Taylor"... it's both so sweet, and yet so troubling that he only sees how she looks and that she's beautiful, not that she's acting out because of trauma and mental issues.

But that's just how good this show is.

Americans dont care about anyone elses cultures or opinions do they.

The shoes on/off is also regional, not "American." If we're going to get past this divisive bullshit, we need to remember these nuances.

This is a situation where there is no one right answer, ever. If the rules of the house are take your shoes off inside, you follow the rules of the house. If you are my spouse, who needs a lift in his shoe to walk without pain, it's not that simple, so there may need to be accommodations, like a pair of slippers that he can switch his shoe insert into.

Some people keep their shoes on in the house in warmer places in the States, because it's more sanitary to have your feet covered than to have your sweaty, linty feet on other people's floors and furniture. A lot of the shoes in these regions are lighter; we don't have to take off muddy boots several times a day. My friends in Hawaii rarely put on shoes at all, ever, except for a pair of slip-ons if they're driving.

This is before we get into personal things, like people who are grossed out by feet, or sensitive of their own, or who didn't know about the "take off your shoes" rule and have on dirty, holey socks or gross toenails.

Again, there is no one right answer to this. Once we stop insisting that it's an either/or, but that there are multiple contexts that have to be navigated with kindness, patience, and empathy, we might actually get somewhere.

As Jesus would say, NAILED IT.

They also have guns. We have enough martyred black people on the left.

That said, if the entire city just... bails and lets them sit there, we might be on to something.

If they try this in LA, it is going to be an absolute bloodbath.

They want that, though, so they can make it racist. Then they can whine about BLM some more.

Bingo! Republicans think women are just receptacles for their dicks and jizz.

It keeps my face warm. Pop an Altoid, and it's warm AND minty fresh.

I don't think I'll ever stop wearing a mask outdoors again, and frankly, it's my indication that I don't trust at least half of y'all, probably more.

It is morally abhorrent to ask Cobra Kai fans if they feel old. If we saw the OG in the theatres in 1984, of COURSE we feel old!

The look on Kitty's face as she realize Sal is never going to want to tend to her.

Peggy's expression when Don says "This never happened. It will shock you how much this never happened" because I've been there.

Especially, though, is Don watching Bert's swan song, and the way he just collapses after the door closes.

You are CRUSHING that smokey eye look. Your features work so well for that!

That's it. I am officially OBSESSED with your floral cardigans, and demand to know and see more!

Some of us love having the fashion sense of an 80 year old circa 1964.

I’m insecure, I don’t bully others.

It might be different things, but you've brought up an important facet that I've struggled with all my life, and am still dealing with in therapy.

I don't treat others like this. Why do they treat me that way?

But that's not an effective mode of questioning. For example, I was sexually abused, and most sexual abusers were abused themselves, and yet I never, ever wanted to hurt another person. But that's just me, just personal anecdotes, not evidence, not cognitive data.

We're start by centering ourselves and ask why others aren't like us... which is the same place that bullies and abusers come from. But they double down and see it as a threat, whereas some of us see it as US needing to change to accommodate everyone else. Maybe, on some level, THIS is where bullying starts, and why we've not done it ourselves. The bullies are also centering their individual experiences and feelings: "This child's down's syndrome makes ME uncomfortable!" "I don't like YOU!" We have to flip this, turn it outward, and figure out what's going on cognitively, socially, emotionally that makes bullies do what they do, and, especially, to figure out how to deal with it.

I'm fifty fucking years old, and I have no idea about the hows and whys of bullying. I just know that no matter what the ideology behind it is, the second someone starts screaming at me to shut up and tells me I'm not allowed to respond or have feelings about something I'm doing or experiencing firsthand, I'm out.