1645

Ah, now you are fully arguing against… Pronouns.

Cool man, you clearly have a reasonable, rational position

Good luck with that one, chief.

1646

No. I made a fucking hilarious joke that also was obscured by the giant wooshing sound.

I guess it didn’t come through in the transcript.

1648

I demand all of you call me your lord supreme emperor and master of the multiverses.

1649

You’re doing yeoman’s work here. Kudos!

1650

That was genuinely interesting, thanks for posting it!

1651

I’ll say this- a few years ago, I found non-binary pronouns kinda weird? Now I have no problem with them.

Maybe stuff like xir will go on the same route if enough folks use them? That said, there are so many of them that I don’t think it will happen.

I also go back to my 19-yr old days. That was my first experience with someone trans, as someone in my writing group transitioned. I realize now that I was asking a lot of questions that were not questions that were normal to ask, so to speak. I also ran into someone who genuinely believed they were a white dragon. I had no problem disbelieving that. I also didn’t care to confront or press on the manner, as I didn’t have to- and why make someone else’s life more shit?

I philosophically struggle with how I can justify accepting one easily and not the other, and what does it mean? Identity and thinking about it can really be a struggle. I really think that’s part of the reason transphobia exists so much- people who don’t have gender identity struggles don’t think about it - things are so much easier for them. I’m envious.

My struggles and issues at 19, I think they directly led to my entire life, and my current struggles, which I deliberately do not talk about here in any detail due to not trusting some folks here, largely because of this thread.

1652

Guarantee they don’t genuinely believe it. I used to tell people I was a 1000 year old vampire when I was in high school. I wore black clothes and listened to Sisters of Mercy. Kids do cringey shit. Sometimes they never outgrow it.

1653

Might be right, but ultimately it’s not my call whether to disbelieve their intent or not. I mean, folks do that to transfolk, especially back in the day.

I quickly and thankfully lost contact with this person very quickly. I refound their stuff out of curiousity- they’ve had a hard life, harder than mine.

1654

Yes, well said. I also see lots of overlap with the whole mask-wearing issue we’ve been dealing with.

1655

Head of CPAC trying to cancel PBS because it’s political correctness run rampant, or something.

1656

Ernie and Bert are pretty clearly white people. I mean they aren’t the waspiest examples of Caucasian puppets but come on.

1657

What makes you say this? Are all the muppets white people?

1658

Isn’t Sesame Street on HBO now?

1659

Roosevelt Franklin was the “black” sesame street character (at least for a while).

1660

But again, what are you using to determine the race of all the humanoid muppets?

Are they all white, except for Roosevelt Franklin, who’s black because he’s brown?

1661

Bert and Ernie were created and voiced by Jim Henson and Frank Oz. Two exceedingly white guys. Something that is not exactly missing from their characters and mannerisms (despite Bert’s Latin temper, yes that’s a joke).

Roosevelt Franklin was performed by (and I think created by) Matt Robinson, a black man, specifically to have a character that was inclusive to that population and culture. Clearly back then there was some notion that Bert and Ernie didn’t represent the whole spectrum of humans.

Not really much different from having a Korean American character created and/or performed by a Korean American.

1662

Also in support of the fact that Bert is white, I submit:

1663

Hmm, I guess that’s a rationale, although I’m not sure that simply being voiced by a white guy makes a character white.

I definitely agree that Roosevelt Franklin was supposed to be black, and a character like Prairy Dawn is a blonde white girl.

I would also agree that I think when I was a kid, I also thought of Bert and Ernie as white, but I’m not sure there was any actual reason, and I might have simply thought that because I was white myself…

Although I may not have actually thought about it at all, and simply not really been that aware of race when I was a kid of that age. I’m trying to think about it now, and I don’t actually know if little kid me was aware of it or not.

It’s interesting though, as it seems kind of weird when I think about it that Roosevelt Franklin is Black, because the color of his “skin” is brown… But then every other color muppet is actually white? I’m not sure most of the muppets are really supposed to be a particular race? Most of them don’t have natural skin tones.

1664

Are The Simpsons white?

1665

The idea originally, as I understand it, was that they were all weird colors to avoid them being any race.
But that didn’t last too long because… they sounded and acted like white dudes.