The point of voting blue in 2018 isn’t to make the US perfect. We cannot accomplish that in one fell swoop. There’s gerrymandering, voter apathy, voter suppression, and generations of older party-line fucks we have to deal with.
Voting blue in 2018 is to make it lessimmediately threatening for PoC, LGBT+ people, the disabled, and any other marginalized demographic. It’s a stopgap against Republicans who are aligned with Nazis, white supremacists, and sexual abusers.
Correcting politics in the United States is going to take decades of new voters staying on top of politics and not falling prey to apathy, like our predecessors.
People telling you not to waste a vote on 3rd Party this midterm aren’t saying “never vote 3rd party.” Republicans have united behind one utterly heinous front.We need to unite behind Democrats, for the time being.
“Sometimes you’re the toxic one. Sometimes you try so hard to be a good person and treat others well, but you still don’t treat someone in your life fairly. When that happens, it’s so important to acknowledge it, and act accordingly, whether that means allowing the relationship to end, or making amends. Own up to your mistakes and actions, and be better in the future. You aren’t a bad person.”
I don’t understand how you can see Killmonger disrespect culture, attack women, basically was trained by military to tear down civilizations, his own father says he is disappointed in what he’s done, move to arm black people outside of Wakanda with high tech weapons (yes cuz giving Leroy and em cannon blasters is gonna help the cause) and y’all still fix ya lips to say he was right lol when Nakia exists. Wild.
I was waiting for someone to say this.
There’s a reason he was the villain. He killed his girlfriend in cold blood. His anger was understandable, true, but his methods abhorrent and destructive. The end result would have been huge amounts of death and chaos. No positive outcome.
[Killmonger was an amazingly written villain and a great, if not perfect, example of how to execute a “tragic backstory villain arc”. Due to his characters anger and Michael’s incredible acting it made Killmonger a character a large amount of people could empathize with. An amazing villain. Truly.]
Nakia LITERALLY was team “let’s stop having Wakanda be an isolationist nation and help the worlds oppressed” from the jump and she doesn’t get enough credit.
exactly! she was meant as a foil to killmonger with the same founding principles to demonstrate his extremism while also being ABSOLUTELY RIGHT
i mean i dont think we can discuss these characters like this without relating it to the message the movie was meant to convey which is - in my mind at least - that colonialism is evil and decolonising the world is the only way forward. im defining colonialism here to mean when one group of people believes they have the right to subjugate and oppress another group of people. because every character in this movie i think was shedding light on another facet of this issue through their story, and i think that with nakia and killmonger, if you compare and contrast them, they were both trying to fight colonialism, but killmonger was raised in a colonialist society, he had internalised it, and he believed the only way to combat his own oppression was to turn it around. he wanted to recolonise the world in his favour. he wanted a wakandan empire. whereas nakia never knew colonialism until she saw how it hurt people, nakia came from a non-colonialist, non-hierarchical society and so she could easier envision a world of equality that wasnt oppressor and oppressed, so nakia wanted to decolonise, she wanted to raise all people to the same level. like im def not attributing all of nakia’s goodness to outside forces, because as we saw in the movie, the power from colonialism appeals even to wakandans, i also think nakia is just a beautiful soul, just an inherently good person. but yeah i think both characters shared the thematic purpose of illustrating the right and the wrong way to fight colonialism
and because that tweet mentioned toxic masculinity, which was absolutely a major theme that absolutely ties into the anti-colonialist message, i wanna talk about that. killmonger was absolutely adhering to toxic masculinity and patriarchy, he was a misogynist who was routinely violent against women, because killmonger’s other thematic purpose was to show the effects of internalised colonialism and patriarchy is a product of colonialism, which is why in wakanda theres gender equality. historically, colonialists have strategically installed patriarchy within communities they were taking over because it served to divide the population, take away power from half the community, and make their regime appeal to the men who would gain some power to disguise the power they were losing and who, through subjugating the women, would further their own community’s oppression. i think we see this process somewhat being illustrated in black panther through w’kabi and his quest for more power through colonialism, which pitted him against okoye
I will remember your small room, the feel of you, the light in the window, your records, your books, our morning coffee, our noons, our nights, our bodies spilled together, sleeping, the tiny flowing currents, immediate and forever. Your leg, my leg, your arm, my arm, your smile and the warmth of you who made me laugh again.
Chiune Sugihara. This man saved 6000 Jews. He was a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania. When the Nazis began rounding up Jews, Sugihara risked his life to start issuing unlawful travel visas to Jews. He hand-wrote them 18 hrs a day. The day his consulate closed and he had to evacuate, witnesses claim he was STILL writing visas and throwing from the train as he pulled away. He saved 6000 lives. The world didn’t know what he’d done until Israel honored him in 1985, the year before he died.
Why can’t we have a movie about him?
He was often called “Sempo”, an alternative reading of the characters of his first name, as that was easier for Westerners to pronounce.
His wife, Yukiko, was also a part of this; she is often credited with suggesting the plan. The Sugihara family was held in a Soviet POW camp for 18 months until the end of the war; within a year of returning home, Sugihara was asked to resign - officially due to downsizing, but most likely because the government disagreed with his actions.
He didn’t simply grant visas - he granted visas against direct orders, after attempting three times to receive permission from the Japanese Foreign Ministry and being turned down each time. He did not “misread” orders; he was in direct violation of them, with the encouragement and support of his wife.
He was honoured as Righteous Among the Nations in 1985, a year before he died in Kamakura; he and his descendants have also been granted permanent Israeli citizenship. He was also posthumously awarded the Life Saving Cross of Lithuania (1993); Commander’s Cross Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland (1996); and the Commander’s Cross with Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta (2007). Though not canonized, some Eastern Orthodox Christians recognize him as a saint.
Sugihara was born in Gifu on the first day of 1900, January 1. He achieved top marks in his schooling; his father wanted him to become a physician, but Sugihara wished to pursue learning English. He deliberately failed the exam by writing only his name and then entered Waseda, where he majored in English. He joined the Foreign Ministry after graduation and worked in the Manchurian Foreign Office in Harbin (where he learned Russian and German; he also converted to the Eastern Orthodox Church during this time). He resigned his post in protest over how the Japanese government treated the local Chinese citizens. He eventually married Yukiko Kikuchi, who would suggest and encourage his acts in Lithuania; they had four sons together. Chiune Sugihara passed away July 31, 1986, at the age of 86. Until her own passing in 2008, Yukiko continued as an ambassador of his legacy.
It is estimated that the Sugiharas saved between 6,000-10,000 Lithuanian and Polish Jewish people.
It’s a tragedy that the Sugiharas aren’t household names. They are among the greatest heroes of WWII. Is it because they were from an Axis Power? Is it because they aren’t European? I don’t know. But I’ve decided to always reblog them when they come across my dash. If I had the money, I would finance a movie about them.
He told an interviewer:
You want to know about my motivation, don’t you? Well. It is the kind of sentiments anyone would have when he actually sees refugees face to face, begging with tears in their eyes. He just cannot help but sympathize with them. Among the refugees were the elderly and women. They were so desperate that they went so far as to kiss my shoes, Yes, I actually witnessed such scenes with my own eyes. Also, I felt at that time, that the Japanese government did not have any uniform opinion in Tokyo. Some Japanese military leaders were just scared because of the pressure from the Nazis; while other officials in the Home Ministry were simply ambivalent.
People in Tokyo were not united. I felt it silly to deal with them. So, I made up my mind not to wait for their reply. I knew that somebody would surely complain about me in the future. But, I myself thought this would be the right thing to do. There is nothing wrong in saving many people’s lives….The spirit of humanity, philanthropy…neighborly friendship…with this spirit, I ventured to do what I did, confronting this most difficult situation—and because of this reason, I went ahead with redoubled courage.
He died in nearly complete obscurity in Japan. His neighbors were shocked when people from all over, including Israeli diplomatic personnel, showed up at quiet little Mr. Sugihara’s funeral.
I will forever reblog this, I wish more people would know about them!
I liked this before when it had way less information. Thank you, history-sharers.
Tucked away in a corner in L.A.’s Little Tokyo is a life-sized statue of Chiune, seated on a bench and smiling gently as he holds out a visa.
The stone next to him bears a quote from the Talmud; “He who saves one life, saves the entire world.”
I had no idea it existed until a few weeks ago, but it’s since become one of my favorite pieces of public art.
