The Intrigue of Apathy

“I went to a prestigious small liberal arts college in Maine. And like many other people of color who have gone to prestigious institutions of higher learning, I had a lot of white liberal friends. And I am sick of some of these white liberal friends telling me how guilty they feel all the time. How guilty they are, how their whiteness makes them feel bad.

“You know, I’m not impressed. Because if I had the choice between white guilt and racism, I’d take the white guilt every time! White guilt sounds great! Are you kidding me?

“Imagine this; you’re in a line, you’re about to board an airplane. All of a sudden security shows up. They pull a Sikh man with a beard and a turban off, they search his bags. You’re watching, what do you think to yourself? ‘Oh this is terrible, I feel terrible! This is again racial profiling. That man’s done nothing wrong. How ‘bout they search––they should search me, I’m a white man! I could be the next Timothy McVeigh. They don’t know that! Why don’t they search my bags? ‘Cause I’m white. I feel terrible. I feel so terrible. I mean, I’m still gonna board the plane, but I’m gonna feel bad about it, I’m gonna sit in my chair, I’m gonna feel gross- Oh! I’ll write Rachel Maddow an email, that’s what I’ll do! And I’ll tell Terry Gross, and I’ll read my bell hooks on the plane. Yes, see then, everything will be better. I’ll feel better!’

“…to any white liberals watching, remember this; your white guilt is a part of your white privilege.”

— Hari Kondabolu

(via fearbreeze)

stormdicks:

ladyofrainbows:

usetheforcelucius:

confessions-of-ice-and-fire:

“Robert doesn’t get enough hate”

- submitted by anonymous

I’M SCREAMING.
usually you see “such-and-such doesn’t get enough love” but this confession is glorious

and I agree with it.

#I ONLY LIKE HIM AS PART OF THE HORRIBLY DYSFUNCTIONAL BARATHEON BROS DYNAMIC #BUT HE WAS A SELFISH ABUSIVE SHIT #WHO GETS AWAY WITH IT BECAUSE HE ISN’T ONE OF THE ””BAD GUYS”’ #AND HE’S FUNNY AND JOVIAL AND READERS LIKE HIM #JUST LIKE PEOPLE IN HIS WORLD DO #AND HE TALKS SHIT ABOUT JOFFREY AND WE GO YEAH!! #AND THEN WE REALIZE THAT ROBERT WAS LARGELY RESPONSIBLE FOR WHY JOFFREY WAS THE WAY HE WAS#BUT LIKE EVERYTHING #ROBERT DEFERS RESPONSIBILITY AND THEN SEES HIMSELF AS THE WRONGED PARTY #I DON’T BLAME YOU IF YOU LIKE HIM AS A CHARACTER #BUT HE IS A PRETTY SHITTY PERSON LET’S BE REAL (via: strormdicks)

#i don’t even want to say ‘doesn’t get enough hate’ #but dammit #robert gets away with most of the shit he does #while the other characters faults are usually being talked about by this fandom #as a character he is interesting #as a person #not so much #robert baratheon #game of thrones

yeah this pretty much. And it is sort of a neat (and frustrating) trick of GRRM’s, I think, that Robert (and Renly as well) have the same effect on so many readers that they do on people in their worlds. They’re SO charming and funny that we forget about Robert’s selfishness and cruelty and sense of entitlement that he didn’t have the perfect life he wanted and the fact that Renly uses people and is willing to make Margaery Robert’s queen at the probable expense of Cersei’s life and later starves out the smallfolk of King’s Landing so that he can take the throne. I think the “Stark filter” issue also applies to the Baratheons in AGoT; Robert appears to be a decent guy just because he has to be—Ned wouldn’t be loyal to someone who was an awful person, right??? And lots of people hate Cersei and Jaime at that point, so they’re likely going to root for a character who calls the Lannisters “yellow-haired shits”. 

And I think that being candid and blunt to the point of being offensive is a character trait that people tend to value (especially in male characters). It’s like “hey, he’s honest! That must mean he’s a good guy!” Snark tends to be the weapon of beloved antiheroes, people who “cut through the bullshit” and tear down people who are “too big for their britches” etc. So when you get a character who is cool and snarky but is also is an abuser of power and a perpetuator of bullshit it can provide some dissonance, at least for me. But that’s one of the things GRRM does so well. You get a character like Tyrion who uses snark as a weapon against people in power, but then also has power himself that he abuses through sexist and classist attitudes and actions. (Not that Robert and Tyrion are all that similar in terms of power or even character, and Tyrion is much more legitimately oppressed than Robert is—Robert just has a major victim complex—but many readers see both of them as those cool guys who say what everyone’s thinking but nobody wants to say hell yeah!!) 

And there’s nothing wrong with liking the snark and the character—I find Robert entertaining a lot of the time!—as long as one realizes that they’re just as capable of creating bullshit as they are of tearing it down. And that some, like Robert, do create an awful lot of bullshit.