From: M. Taylor Saotome-Westlake Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2021 00:39:10 +0000 (-0800) Subject: drafting "See Color" Decision Child PSA linkpost X-Git-Url: http://unremediatedgender.space/source?p=Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git;a=commitdiff_plain;h=c8de5865c13ff09531a83c2ac712bf3172f4217c;ds=sidebyside drafting "See Color" Decision Child PSA linkpost --- diff --git a/content/drafts/link-see-color.md b/content/drafts/link-see-color.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0bb5ff5 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/drafts/link-see-color.md @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ +Title: Link: "See Color" +Date: 2021-02-28 +Category: other +Tags: linkpost, video, ideology, Steven Universe +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_. + + + +There's some sense in which I think the creators "got lucky" with this short—I didn't think much of the two prior entries in [the series](https://www.crystalgemsspeakup.com/), ["Tell the Whole Story"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JheC-_8I5A) and ["Don't Deny It—Defy It"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA0KTFdnBk8), which follow the same pattern of portraying the filming of a 1990s-alike liberal PSA being interrupted by the actors supplying a more up-to-date woke moral. (I found Pearl's rant in "Tell the Whole Story" unpersuasive—you would expect systemic racism to suppress black accomplishment in the past, not just the portrayal thereof in modern textbooks; as for "Don't Deny It", I was too distracted by the kids taking gay marriage for granted to process the claim that anti-miscegenation attitudes are still a potent threat—[_Loving_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia) was _forty-eight years_ before [_Obergefell_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obergefell_v._Hodges).) + +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. + +> BLACK KID: Well I'm not an alien, but it definitely matters to me that I'm black. + +> WHITE KID: Yeah, it makes a difference that I'm white. [to BLACK KID] I know the two of us get treated, very differently. + +> 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. + +> BLACK KID and WHITE KID: [in unison] Yeah, that is pretty weird. + +> 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. + +> 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. + +> 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] + +[TODO: notice the subtle asymmetry where, for the black kid, being black is important _to her_, whereas the white kid acknowledges that being black "makes a difference"—the white kid saying that being white is _matters_ to her would not be OK; "other people of color" suggest that racism against white people isn't possible—and from usage, this actually "feels right" to me; people complaining about wokeness being racist don't feel very persuasive]