i had to watch this like 5 times because of no captions but lmao if someone makes a transcript for this it would be bomb
transcript: “So we have these Santas at work, right, okay? We have black and we have white Santas. And they’re like creepy, five-foot tall, lifelike animatronic… like, Santas that hold plates of cookies and milk, and they kinda look like they could wake up and come to life and murder you in your sleep– and they don’t include batteries, but we have these Santas. Like nothing screams ‘festive holiday cheer’ like a big, hulking Santa. Um. Nothin’ will jingle your jangles more. So, um, this woman comes in and she’s like, “Do you have these?” and I’m like, “Oh my god, yeah!” So a couple weeks ago we sold out of our white Santas, and we are down to like, three black Santas. And so, I take her to the aisle, I show her the Santas, and the first thing out of her mouth is, “I’m not racist, but…” and I’m like, well, I can’t– I’m not in the position to decide if you are or not, but if like– if I could use context clues and infer, uh, I would say maybe that you might be. And three, we’re talking about Santa. Like– (stuttering) did we switch subjects? And so, um, I’m in like, I– the next thing that pops out of her mouth is like, “This is not right.” and I’m like, okay, I’m sorry, but this is what the picture was. And she’s like, “No. Santa is white.” And I’m like, oh no, okay. Okay. So I’m in– I’m about to tell her, I’m like, mid-sentence, like, “I’m sorry, do you want me to go call another store, do you need me to, like, write you a raincheck just in case we we get any more.” And she’s like, “This is wrong, I want them taken down.” She interrupts me, says that, and I’m like, (pause). I like, look around, and I’m like, is she talking to me? Is this, like, my own, like, personal hell? But like, of course it is. So, um, I’m like, “I can’t take these Santas down.” And she’s like, “Why not?!” And I’m like, “You either have to buy them, or take them down yourself.” And that was like, the stupidest thing I could have ever said, because– (sighs) she takes this bag, with like, Jesus’s face, like, slammed right in the middle as a design– it’s big– she takes it off her shoulder, and starts beating these black Santas! She starts beating these Santas down, they were like, falling down… and I’m like, oh my god! What– what is happening? So like, I step in the middle of her and these Santas and I’m like, “Ma’am, ma’am, you need to leave, you need to stop, or I’m going to have to call someone.” So she like, stops, and she’s like, beet red, and like, huffin’ and puffin’, and she like, looks at me and I can tell she’s just trying to get like, a one-liner in, and she’s like, “The Santa I know is white.” And then she walks away. And I’m like, well– I’m processing what’s happening, while also thinking, like, the Santa you know? Santa’s not real. So unless you’re using an ouija board to contact good old Kris Kringle, um, from like, B.C. or whenever, I’m like, that’s pretty impressive, but how ya doin’ that. And, um, I– the last thought that ran through my mind is that, I’m like, I would hate to be in the room with her when she finds out that Jesus is not white.”
if you’re not committed to antiracism, you’re not a good doctor.
I remember when I had pneumonia I was so sick and exhausted and in pain that I couldn’t get out of bed for *days* — I eventually pushed myself to walk across campus to the doctor’s office (it took me literally 45 minutes to walk there bc I had to walk so slow) and when I got there…the doctor made it seem I was only trying to get out of writing an exam lol. I was too embarrassed to tell her that I was going to be withdrawing from the class anyway bc I hadn’t had the energy to get to lectures at all that semester. She lectured me about how she sees students do this all the time and she can’t take a risk in trusting me when the only thing that was wrong with me was exhaustion. “We all have off days” is what she said lolol.
I was so humiliated at her insinuation that I eventually just nodded when she said it “didn’t seem like I had any issues” and went back home. It wasn’t until I fainted walking down the hallway like 4 feet outside my apartment that I started panicking and called someone to take me to the hospital. When I got there even the receptionists looked genuinely pale to see how hard it was for me to walk and how much it hurt to breathe or talk.
It would take *6* different antibiotics for the really advanced pneumonia to finally die out, the last of which was delivered intravenously in my arm for 10 continuous days — I still have the scar where the initial IV was and I have another mark on my wrist. I *literally* couldn’t walk or lay on my back for 8-9 weeks. I would sleep sitting up with pillows on a chair and when my breath would involuntarily deepen as I started to fall asleep I would jerk awake bc of the sharp pain my lung where the pneumonia was.
That same doctor who thought I was lying about being sick would then call me like 34 times in a row when my blood test results came to her office and the hospital sent her my chest x rays lolol, obviously worried about looking bad and having called me a liar and sending me home when I had such a serious bout of pneumonia.
In the 3rd year of my premed degree I would learn that doctors in North America — and specifically white women in nursing lol — often see south Asian women as malingerers who exaggerate their pain. In a UK study there were neonatal nurses who went so far as to say that south Asian women also lack maternal instincts, care more about their pain meds than their child and “can’t handle” child birth.
Yosif al Hasnawi — an Iraqi Canadian teen — died at the hands of two paramedics who did not believe he had been shot and claimed he was “acting” when he was actually internally bleeding. They made him walk to the ambulance with a bullet in his stomach, from which he would later die after not being transported to the hospital for 38 minutes.
Just yesterday My cousin, totally healthy, just died of a brain hemorrhage and often complained about ongoing migraines that could’ve been telltale signs of hypertension that were totally ignored by her doctor for years.
and just a day before that Kim porter who was otherwise healthy just died of pneumonia while having expressed her symptoms and pain to doctors for days — I would say that I’m shocked by this but the implications faced by brown people and racism in the healthcare system is 10x worse for black women who are often seen as liars and in it for the meds as a result of historical anti blackness and systemic rejection of black patients’ pain.
doctors are literally trained to perceive racialized people as malingerers who are trying to scam for meds or medical attention instead of people in pain. It’s 100% systemic and actually integrated into medical education.
“can’t shake the devil’s hand and say you’re only kidding” is the most concise and powerful dismissal of people who are “jokingly” racist and i can’t believe it’s from a They Might Be Giants song
With all these updates about the trc tv show I’ve been seeing some old arguments pop up about labeling or reading certain characters as poc- especially in relation to casting or reading Ronan as black. This entire idea of not casting Ronan as a black man because it would reinforce the “angry black person” narrative feels like… such a cop-out and more of an excuse to not have poc in the cast?? Like, why is it that when we even mention Ronan being a moc his entire character gets reduced to his anger and violence (by the author herself too??) but when race isn’t a factor we can suddenly acknowledge all of his other qualities (I.e his devotion to his brother Matthew and gansey, his growth with Declan, his religion and how he sees himself and his dreaming, and this particular line that always fucks me up (Ronan Lynch loved to dream about light). Wouldn’t it be so compelling to watch a multi-faceted gay man of color slowly reveal all these layers to the people around him? Do you know how many fucking books I’ve read about the angsty, angry white boy that shows his feelings by being violent and we eat that shit up but suddenly we make Ronan a moc and we’re being stereotypical? And we do this with Adam too. Anybody even thinks about making him a poc and suddenly he’s nothing more than a poor abused boy? It just feels like a dangerous cycle of allowing white characters to have all these layers while poc get reduced to the worst parts of themselves and I’m honestly so tired of it. Anyway sorry for rambling but as a woman of color I’m still waiting for characters of color to receive the same attention and depth as their white counterparts that we worship so damn much.
Not to mention the fact that, because of de facto educational segregation, black kids are less likely to have attended schools with pools, and thus had no/limited access to swimming as a PE credit/unit or extracurricular.
bullshit central 