After Hope Dies
Page 36
>The Guardian: “The author tries to have it both ways with Janelle’s vocal replacement. On the one hand, it’s an apt and sad point that black people are only taken seriously when given the ‘voice’ of white people, yet the story tries its best to convince us that Janelle isn’t mimicking (oops, my editor told me to remove the word ‘aping’) white speech in as much as she is unlocking some innate power that others mistake as ‘white’. She does this in order to make herself heard – a true power reversal. Whether or not this is intentional, however – of that, I am dubious, given the author’s apparent lack of will to reveal his true intentions. Yes, his intentions. Let’s talk for a moment about the audacity of a male pretending to write as a woman to score extra minority points…
>New York Times: “Yet again, we see a white author staking territory that does not belong to them, employing a voice that does not belong to them, profiteering from the reinforcement of minority stereotypes in a manner that verges beyond cynical and well into the nasty. The damage this story will do doesn’t quite undo the good brought to us by the #ownvoices movement so much as it reinforces the need to sit white people down and drill this into their heads: POCs are not your property to abuse for quick points. We don’t need you to write our stories for us. We don’t need you to be our saviours. We need you to not be morally corrupt. We need you to stop telling us what not to get upset over, as though if we just shut up and listen to you, everything will be ok. We need to be heard with our own voices. Is that too much to ask?”
>WaPo: “The metafiction is used as a shield by the author to deflect any sense that this is a story both unwarranted and insensitive. I imagine, some time soon, the author will release a sort of ‘alternative ending’ where they try and explain away the racism and focus on the ‘real point’ of the story. A point that, for every white person, will seem new and strange and foreign. A point that, to every minority man, woman and child under the thumb of systematic white oppression, will appear like a gull above the waves declaring that water is wet. Aptly, the gull can fly away from the sea and sleep comfortable on dry land. But the fish? They must remain and fester in the waters.”
>Boston Globe: “Perhaps, if I’m being generous, HDN can be seen as one person’s attempt to justify their racist viewpoint through a satirical lens. “Hey, look at me, I’m being racist, isn’t racism horrible?” But I don’t buy that sort of smarmy self reflection. If anything, that constitutes some flavour of double exploitation that we haven’t yet found a name for. In the meantime, perhaps we can settle on: deplorable.”
>Author takes to twitter, makes a ham-fisted attempt to justify his {racism / yellow-face / exploitation} by claiming the story is {just a work of fiction / satire / meta-fiction / victim to a PC culture / actually home to an important message / racist for a reason / not reflective of who he is as a person / triggering the SJWs lol / actually not racist because Janelle is a unique, strong female character (possibly bisexual?) who don’t need no man / not as bad as the actual racism experienced day to day by minorities in the US and that the virtue signallers should be focusing their attention elsewhere}.
>Goodreads and Amazon ratings take a steep nosedive, averaging at 2.7 and 3 respectively.
>Jorden Peele leads public campaign to axe the Netflix adaptation.
>Netflix production axed after public pressure mounts.
>Author takes to twitter, denounces “{concern trolls / professional victims} and the {Jewish / PC / Leftist / Feminist} controlled media apparatus”.
>Author doxxed, threatening letters sent to home address.
>Author takes to twitter, slanders several prominent POCs.
>Several independent civil law suits brought against author.
>Author takes to twitter, apologises, spends seven of eight tweets thanking family and friends for their support during this difficult time.
>Video upload to Facebook page: “Hey guys, it’s me here, just uploading a quick video to explain what’s been happening in my life recently. I’d like to start out by saying a huge thanks to my family and friends, who have…”
>Solange leads public campaign to ban HDN from the Amazon Marketplace.
>eBook version of HDN removed from Amazon in response to mass flooding of reports by the flag mechanism.
>Author snaps, writes a racial slur directed at Solange over Twitter.
>Author loses job at {Google / Somewhere Important}.
>{Somewhere Important} HR statement: “The person in question has since been removed from our organisation as their behaviour doesn’t reflect our core values. We at {multinational monstrosity that engages in tax avoidance and directly finances investment groups with their tendrils deep in fossil fuels, arms trades, warfare industries} are a {modern / progressive / inclusive / 21st century} workplace, and therefore…”
>Author finds sudden unironic influx of right-wing fans.
>feelsbadman.svg
>Milo Yanasplopalys gives the kiss of death to Lilly H. Not fab.
>Author tries to grapple with internal disquiet at abandoning once-cherished left-of-centre social beliefs in lieu of protection against social criticism.
>Another white person {releases a racist {book / TV show / movie / song} / culturally appropriates a {dress / hairstyle / language}}.
>A new cycle of outrage begins.
>Everyone argues over the colour of the bikeshed while the park beyond festers.
>Another unarmed black man in the US is shot dead by police.
>A new cycle of outrage begins.
>Author commits suicide. Nobody notices.
>Another unarmed black man is shot dead by police AND a white person does something racist on the same day.
>A new Twitter hashtag is coined in response: #itendstoday. Goes viral.
>Very soon after, due in no small part to Twitter activism, Americans achieve a complete and resounding victory against structural racism.
>America is fine.
>America has no more problems.
>America continues being great in the following ways:
>Americans live and die in 3rd world conditions.
>America fails to implement basic social health care or public education reform, thus perpetuating poverty.
>America fails to improve basic public transport services and access to dental, grocers, DMV registration centres in disadvantaged areas, thus perpetuating poverty.
>America continues to punish poor people disproportionately through excessive fines for menial infractions, bail bonds, for-profit prison systems.
>American voting system increases state of Gerrymandering, electoral fraud.
>America continues to fall in global iHDI rankings.
>American voter turnout for the 2018 Midterm elections is the lowest in decades, resting at twenty eight percent of the registered voter population.
>America continues to destroy once-solid relations with their closest allies.
>America imposes more trade tariffs on overseas products, angering Canada, Mexico, Germany, the EU.
>America goes to war with Iran, Russia and Turkey, staged by proxy in the Ukraine.
>After an initial uptick in war-related GDP, total American GDP continues to slide as the war effort is constantly undermined by the president’s Russia connections.
>A series of coordinated China-led cyber attacks cripple American infrastructure, leaving hospitals, ports and the New York Stock Exchange without power for two days.
>Business confidence in the US slides to an all-time low. USD sinks to a fifteen-year low.
>US expels Chinese ambassador, announces new tariffs and boosts military presence in Okinawa, Philippines, Guam.
>China calls in US household debt, which it has been slowly buying for the last decade.
>US defaults on loans. Credit rating downgraded to A.
>US calls in China household debt, which it has been slowly buying for the last decade, but their purchasing power is pegged to an increasingly weak USD due to unstable stoc
k exchange uptime.
>China applies to the IMF to defer repayment. IMF agrees, given China’s higher credit rating.
>US government refuses to bail out US banks.
>American reserve bank asks the EU merchant and reserve banks for a bail-out.
>EU Banks refuse. EU/US relations at all-time low after the president’s now eight-year trade war left a bitter taste in their collective mouths.
>American economy crashes into deep recession.
>America drastically scales back overseas aid and military spending, leaving East Asia, South East Asia, the Gulf and Central Africa vulnerable to China influence.
>One belt, one road takes control.
>American economic interests undermined as former allies seek more reliable trade partners.
>Australia increases trade with China, providing China with a secure source of food and high-quality goods.
>South Korea and Japan form a new alliance of convenience.
>China, North Korea, Russia declare war on Korea/Japan/the Philippines. India bribed to stay out of conflict.
>US can’t afford another war. Denounces China. Watches.
>EU can’t afford another war. Denounces China. Watches.
>Seoul obliterated by a Pukkuksong-2 nuclear-tipped warhead. South Korea invaded. Japan invaded. Heinous war crimes committed. Philippines surrender to China control before land invasion.
>Taiwan re-joins the DROC.
>Hong Kong and Macau lose autonomy.
>EU loses vital trade link to Asia markets.
>Singapore is ok, though. They’re doing just fine.
>Most Pacific Island nations lean into China for infrastructure support, allowing China to effectively colonise the Western Pacific sphere. Goodbye, Guam, Micronesia, American Samoa, etc.
>America declares the might of the West has fallen because of ‘liberal coercion and excess ethnic migration’.
>America experiences marked uptick in fascism.
>Current state of American political climate makes 2018 look like a social paradise.
>American GDP upticks as Republicans deregulate every industry in an attempt to re-start the stalled heart of the American nation.
>Deregulation leaves every industry open to international interference and corruption.
>Chinese state-owned enterprises buy majority stakes in US utilities, services, public assets. Due to deregulation, security objections are swept aside. NSA protests. NSA dissolved.
>US states begin to secede from the union, imposing their own trade and tax relations with the EU, China, India in a weak attempt to stop the country from brain-draining.
>Congress threatens war against seceded nations, but the downfall happens so quickly that there is no longer a consensus on where the national marshal forces exist and to which entity they serve.
>Overseas military operations suspended, armed forces disbanded, embassies no longer represent a central US authority.
>Conflict breaks out in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan as US-backed government forces collapses.
>India declares war on Pakistan.
>California establishes new constitutional capital.
>America splits apart, with California becoming the Washington D.C. of the West.
>The USD is no longer the global currency standard as East and West America assert their control over a dollar nobody wants to touch.
>US reverse bank sells remaining debt to China and forms new reserves as follows:
>Eastern America is quite poor.
>Western America is extremely poor.
>Mexico buys back Southern America.
>Northern America is poor.
>California splits from Western America. The Californian Republic is doing ok. Ok jobs and ok levels of corruption.
>New York State splits from Eastern America. New New York is doing ok. Ok jobs and ok levels of corruption.
>Closed borders exist between all countries, save for Eastern America into Canada.
>Eastern Americans continue to live and die in 3rd world conditions.
>Buoyed by cheap labour rates and staggering corruption, Chinese companies relocate their manufacturing efforts to Eastern America.
>Now it’s time for {Chinese Popstars / shoe makers} to make their {cheap, feminist-marketed activewear / sports shoes} in American sweatshops and then justify their capitalistic greed with, ‘well, actually, in the EUS, 5RMD per day is a really high wage that keeps these people out of poverty. Would you rather they not work at all? Oh, but we can’t pay them higher wages because then the local enonomy will inflate artificially. So we can feel justified in exploting them. All good. Bad luck, I guess, to be born in America.’
>Corrupt lobby groups push hard against the Republican party to legislate for ‘minor employment strategies’ to increase household wages and boost GDP. Legislation passes.
>Child labour becomes commonplace because it’s the only way for families to survive.
>Child prostitution occurs behind the curtains in pubs, bars, clubs and churches because it’s the only way for families to survive.
>Industry deregulation and desperation leads congress to decriminalise sex work. A loophole exists that unbinds the age of consent from local licensed brothels.
>Religious elements lobby the Republican Party for change – over the counter sale of the pill can be refused at pharmacist discretion. Prophylactic access restricted.
>Clubs begin to accept children as young as eleven as workers.
>In California, another racist white person releases a racist {book / TV show / movie / song}.
>Everybody is outraged.
>A new Twitter hashtag is coined: #todayitends. Trends quite well.
>Racism is defeated once and for all.
>A twelve-year-old girl is raped and murdered outside her strip club.
>A young black man can’t get support for his mental illness and slides a razor blade through his brachial artery.
>A young girl flees the violence in her home and becomes lost to the world.
>A man who tries his best to change the system from the inside out succeeds only in sowing more evil into an already broken city.
>A woman can’t justify her evil any longer and decides to…
>Nobody notices.
>Nobody cares.
>Hope, Despair: Nowhere. Now. Here.
Maybe you and I can think of a different ending to this story.
I hope so.
Lilly Haraden
/A/HRC/38/33/ADD.1
Final Note
Thank you for reading! Really, thank you.
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