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| Honestly, I think the "not my president" t-shirt would have work- ed even better as a "#notmypresident" shirt but that's nitpicking. |
“You know what, I think Bernie Sanders would make a great Secretary of State,” Richards said before being jeered. Later on, he tried to persuade the crowd. “I want to exchange your bullets for bullet points. Bullet points of knowledge.”In another article that goes deeper into the genesis of the character, Deadspin points out that while it's a gimmick that might have a limited shelf life, it is a perfectly-tailor-made hell gimmick that can work to make you want to boo him no matter what side of the aisle you're on politically:
The details really make the gimmick, and they’re not as obvious as the “Not My President” shirt. It’s the way the Progressive Liberal says “Appalachia,” pronouncing the third syllable with a hard A as in “ate,” instead of the flat A preferred by locals. The audience immediately understands that he’s not from here. Richards was originally billed out of Richmond, Virginia, his actual hometown. But he and James realized that when performing in Kentucky, which has a Richmond of its own, the crowd would become confused. So his origin became Washington, D.C.
The [pro wrestling] industry has always been replete with guys working effete liberal gimmicks, but this is the perfect place and time, and Dan Richards has built a sustainable meal ticket, at least within the limited scope of the indie circuit. Test your mental constitution and imagine for a minute if Hillary had won; this character would still be popular and paying customers would still project their frustrations onto him, for a different reason.
This schtick could be milked for so much. He could challenge the women’s champion to a match because he doesn’t see gender. He could steal the belt and give it to some other heel loser to “redistribute” the wealth. Every time he loses a match, he could appeal it to some fake wrestling governing body and get the match turned over to him... When he wins, he could give the loser gift-certificates to Whole Foods and yoga sessions. He could refuse to fight championship matches unless assured that the ring is carbon neutral. I think if done right, this character could be one of the all-time great heels.I haven't enjoyed stuff like this since Daniel Bryan cut a hell of a heel promo about how much he loved being vegan:
The countless histories documenting Dungeons & Dragons’ 40-year ascent to the cultural mainstream tend to gloss over the women who made the fantasy role-playing game what it is today. The early D&D heroes we hear about are always big-gutted men with gray beards, who in their basements and at conventions in their name, cultivated the younger men who would carve the game’s legacy in their image. But that’s the lore of D&D, not its story. From the earliest days of D&D, women were shaping its look, its narrative, its affect and its fandom.
This may come as a surprise since, in those nascent years, most women around D&D were tolerant wives and mothers. That’s not because D&D didn’t appeal to women; it had simply inherited the deeply masculine culture of its predecessor—wargaming.It is a great read and talks with many key TSR employees from Dungeons and Dragons' past. Check it out!
Unfortunately, this knowledge is the overall problem Bendis has in his depiction of Riri Williams. He knows about black pain and the various micro- and macro- aggressions that black people face every day, especially during these particularly fraught times of racial hostility... Basically, Bendis is like your white classmate that took one Africana class and now believes himself to be the purveyor of all knowledge on black life. However, because he acquired his knowledge as an outsider to the culture, the only way he really knows how to depict blackness is through identifiable aspects of The Struggle – all the negative social realities of being black that you see reported on TV, lambasted on Twitter, and through quickly cruising through activist circles in search of easily transferable knowledge about racism without any nuanced understanding of how black people deal with it.
Never in my wildest nightmares would I imagine a black child seeking out racism to fight against in the pursuit of their dreams. Racism isn’t a Sailor Moon villain that waits for us to level up before trying to kick our ass; we are always aware of it and are always affected by it, but one of the best traits that black people have is our ability to bypass that negativity and live our lives despite it, not to specifically spite it.This isn't the first time Bendis' writing for a black character has been criticized. The Nerdist pointed out that Bendis and other white writers writing characters of color often come off as tone-deaf and run the risk of alienating the very fans they want to recruit.
Looking at a diversity initiative as the beginning and end of what's needed to help improve the state of comics is short-sighted and wrong-headed. Instead of just having the same white men tell stories with some characters of color here and there, there should be structure in place for minority writers and artists and creators to tell the stories they want to a mainstream audience. Diversity as the final and only goal is a hollow act that does nothing but reinforce whiteness and the status quo as the default. That's not the world we live in, so why should worlds we get to make up have to be that way? Free your mind, and the audience will follow.
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| Image description: tweet by Titanium Cranium (@FelicityTC) including three screenshots of a Harry potter book in three different formats on Amazon. Text: “Harry Potter on Amazon - Print: $6.39 Audio: $44.99 Braille: $100.00 #CripTax” |
But those defenders of higher prices are reversing the argument to justify fleecing disabled readers.
What do I mean by that?
Braille is not magic. It is done by taking plain text and feeding it through fairly affordable translation software, creating a document that can easily be printed in braille. All that time and effort and special software? IS NOT FOR THE BRAILLE...
Printing in braille is cheap; reverse engineering a finished text to print it in braille IS NOT. Same with those audio books. After a book is completed and, often, after it has already been published, the publisher arranges to have the book recorded by a professional voice actor/reader, which usually also involves a recording producer... However: that cost? IS RARELY FACTORED INTO THE BUDGET OF PRINTING A BOOK.
[The claim that Braille and audio] formats are more expensive to produce so they have to be priced higher is only true if you completely throw out the premise that publishers have an obligation to account for disabled readers when they are actually budgeting for and publishing the book."In my experience as a designer, I've noticed that the high cost of creating accessible features-- whether it's on a website or a building-- is not due to the features costing anything exorbitant. The actual high cost comes in when there is a lack of considering accessibility issues from the very start and you have to retro-fit those features in. Whenever this approach is a project's primary approach to accessibility, then accessibility seems expensive. The true is expense is a failure to plan.
My mom is a textbook braillest. She has the software, fixes the formatting, takes the textbook and makes it translatable into braille. Most of her work ends up becoming rush jobs, because schools always forget about their blind students and the materials that they need. They start semesters without the right textbooks, are provided the materials late, can’t take the tests at the same times, because schools and teachers usually lack the foresight to provide the materials in advance.What we need is for more designers, publishers and project design leads to learn about the principles of universal design.
Most pen-and-paper roleplaying games have hundreds or thousands of pages worth of rules, ideas, story content, and other kinds of errata, but very few devote any of that space to content that addresses issues like consent, sexual diversity or orientation, or the sexual culture of the world one is playing in. In-game, then, one is often subject to depressingly familiar forms of sexual harassment—men having their avatars walk up to yours and awkwardly propositioning you, for instance, or refusing to take “no” for an answer if one rebuffs their entreaties—in or out of character.
Online roleplaying gaming simply follows the paths of sexuality laid out in the physical world.
In spite of this, sexuality is endemic to the world of RPG and part of its visual culture. Commercials and box art for games are rife with heaving bosoms while pornographic proportions are common background decoration, seen by gamers and non-gamers alike.
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| Ray Lloyd in the pro wrestling persona of Glacier. Photo courtesy WWE.com |
“Wrestling usually mimics what’s popular in society, what’s out there that is making money for society. Mortal Kombat was a huge thing in the early 90s, going into the mid 90s, and that was really what happened was … Turner saw an opportunity to capitalize on something that they felt was a good risk. And, as you and I were talking earlier I mentioned to you that, [Diamond Dallas Page] has a great saying where he says, ‘Give me talent, give me luck, or give me timing. I’ll take timing every single time.’ And as I look back on it, no one knew then that the timing might’ve needed to be a little bit earlier. But then again, no one knew that nWo was gonna take off the way it did. You can’t predict something like that.”The article and video goes into the life and times of Glacier and how he's able to use positivity to reach fans both old and new. If you read just one longform article on pro wrestling this year, make it this one. GO. Watch the video! Read the whole thing. Now!
Native Realities, the Albuquerque-based company behind the nation’s only Indigenous Comic Con, is also opening a storefront in downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico later this week. It's called Red Planet Books & Comics and it will be the first indigenous focused and owned comic shop in North America. The store will feature comics, toys, games, children’s books and pop art from Native and indigenous artists, as well as new and used books by indigenous writers from around the world. “What we're trying to create is a community-based space,” Francis explained, after pointing out that Native Realities requires a physical office location, so why not make that space all the more inclusive by inviting in the community that the small press serves? “It's not just the selling of objects, it's [the invitation] to come on down and play games all afternoon. To just come and nerd out, for Native folks to know there's a place like that. I say Native folks—and that is our focus—but really, anybody.” In a world where you can access literally any title you've been wanting to pick up online, it is essential that bookstores facilitate those kinds of connections—to be a rallying point for people who have a strong cross section of interests that pull them there. Red Planet will pull in people with many identities—comic nerds to Magic the Gathering nerds to bookworms and “Indiginerds” of all stripes, as Francis endearingly refers to himself and others.
One consequence of more open discussion about diversity is that nondiverse creators are forced to see that discussion. It’s not like diverse readers and creators just now started criticising works that have huge problems. Rather, those conversations were happening, often in the open, and no one cared or paid attention. Now, there’s enough momentum that they become highly visible, that it’s no longer possible to be insulated from them. Some nondiverse creators appear to be operating under the impression that there’s an army of mean people gearing up to descend on whatever they write to shred it to pieces as soon as it hits the shelves — or before. Often, that comes from a defensive position, because it hurts to hear that you did something wrong, or that something you worked on for months or years has major problems, and the instinctive reaction is to lash out to neutralize the criticism so you can go on with your life.Smith goes into the difference between the fear of doing it wrong, and the fear of how you'll be perceived, and offers some pretty good advice. Another excellent resource are the annual "Writing The Other" workshops and classes offered by authors Nisi Shawl and K. Tempest Bradford.
