Title: Link: "See Color"
Date: 2021-02-28
Category: other
-Tags: linkpost, video, ideology, Steven Universe
+Tags: linkpost, video, ideology, Steven Universe, race
Status: draft
Whether or not you _support_ the ideological transition from late-20th-century individualist "content of their character" liberalism to the [successor ideology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Successor_ideology), as a student of the arts, you've got to admit that [the new _Steven Universe_ anti-racism public service announcement](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJkVgGYm4xo) is a _masterfully well-executed_ piece of propaganda. It's _actually persuasive_. I've _never seen anything like it_.
In contrast, "See Color"'s attacks on old-school liberalism _land_. We open to a '90s-alike PSA invoking the "doesn't matter if you're black, white, or purple" trope (which has been cringe for as long as I (born 1987) can remember, but which I imagine sounded progressive the _first_ time someone said it), until Amethyst breaks character to object to the script—
> AMETHYST: Woah, woah, woah. Hold up a minute here. Ugh, who wrote this? I think it kind of does matter that I'm purple? I mean, I'm purple because I'm literally an alien.
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+>
> BLACK KID: Well I'm not an alien, but it definitely matters to me that I'm black.
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+>
> WHITE KID: Yeah, it makes a difference that I'm white. [to BLACK KID] I know the two of us get treated, very differently.
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+>
> AMETHYST: I just think it's messed up to compare me being an alien, to you two being different races. You're both human; you're totally biologically the same. Adding purple people into a lesson about human racism makes no sense.
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+>
> BLACK KID and WHITE KID: [in unison] Yeah, that is pretty weird.
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> WHITE KID: I think people with the 'black, white, or purple' thing because adding a fantasy race in there helps distract from the actual racism black people have to deal with.
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> BLACK KID: Right. My experience with anti-black racism is really specific. Other people of color experience other forms of racism, too. But you won't see any of that if you don't see color.
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+>
> AMETHYST: Dude, so this entire public service announcement could be a ploy to avoid talking about racism altogether! Hey, ah, could we get a rewrite where we appreciate each other without erasing what makes each of us different?
[TODO: the function of saying "or purple" is to appeal to a principle of equality: if there were purple people, they would get covered by the universal rule. But, Amethyst really is an alien, which would be a different cluster]
projects / Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git / blobdiff