Story time because my dash is all Ferguson, as it should be.
So I got to study abroad in London back in 2005, which was the best 3 weeks of my life. Now I went to Iowa State University, which is a predominantly white school, so I was the only black person in the group, which whatever, I was used to it by then (I had been going to the school since 2001).
Anyhow, one day, one of the guys in the group (I should preface this by saying he was American so you don’t assume it was someone overseas) was talking to everyone. I was coming into our place, and I don’t remember what I had been doing, and I don’t know how the conversation even started with him, but I heard him say something that I still remember, to this day.
“There’s hardly any racism since 1950.”
Now I’m not the kind of person who snaps, as you’ve seen from my rants on here they’re usually calm, and thought out, and I’m a pretty nice person. But man, all I remember feeling is fire, and anger, and just… the NERVE of this man to say this. I remember coming into the room like a hurricane, like, “WHAT?!”
And his response was, “Well people aren’t being hung anymore.”
And the scary thing is that it’s 2014 and racism is still huge and people are getting killed because of the color of their skin, and as scary as these killers are I find it even more horrifying that people, honestly, believe that it’s “no big deal” because “it’s not how it was in the 50s.” We’ve had our civil rights movements and we have black history month and Martin Luther King Jr., so now people think, “Well it’s better because of that stuff, yes?”
The fact that people believe that since history happened, things have improved, disgusts me. If you can’t open your eyes and see the ugly that’s going on all because “improvements” have occurred, then you need to wake up. History doesn’t mean the problem is solved. History was a step. You have to keep making those steps, not standing still. If you think racism is dead because of history as there are people being killed because they “look suspicious (are black)” then you need to put that beat up old book down and take a harder look at the world around you.
There’s hardly any racism? Oh please. There’s hardly any excuse for such blindness.
Actually I believe we’re doing Youmacon for the first time :)
krisrix asked: Confession! As a big fan of P4, I've been following your blog for a long time, and it's made me super wish I was good friends with you and your rad posse. You guys always have such interesting things to say, and your cosplays always look fantastic, and I'm usually left feeling a little bit bummed that I don't live near you guys and could be having Persona-shenanigans with you all, o . o
Okay, I just want to put this out there: I’ve seen several instances of this attitude that parts of the P4 fandom on Tumblr are somehow “closed off” or like an exclusive club or something, and it’s really not. I made the friends I have by going to cons or just interacting with people as much as I can through here, and part of it is just staying visible in the fandom space and continuing to talk to people like they’re people. I’m also a pretty shy person; there were moments when I was anxious while sending someone a message, but I sort of just powered through it, because in the end, they’re all just another fan of this game. Sometimes I ended up not clicking super well with someone, but that’s cool, I just watch their work/headcanons/contributions from afar and that’s pretty neat.
That said, I’ll admit to being lucky in terms of having a group near me that’s all into P4 to some degree or another, but that was either happy coincidence (they’d all played it by the time I met them) or our own influence (“Hey we’re getting into this game here play it”) so! Also, my Investigation Team group of friends is pretty scattered all over the country, not all of us are in immediate physical proximity; the closest one to us is sakura-ouji and he still lives an hour out. So a lot of us being together only really happens at cons, I guess?
I dunno, man! If you’re ever at Fanime, AX, or Katsu, that’s where we all tend to congregate. But don’t just sit back and feel bad, chat us up! I know Tumblr’s a pretty limited space for that kind of thing but I do notice repeat commenters/usernames/etc. and while I haven’t had time to reply to all my messages as quickly as I used to, I still try to respond to them.
Hell yeah! 8D I didn’t mean for it to sound too self-depreciating or anything like that - just that like, I find the hangouts that you guys have to be super rad, and I wish I was a part of ‘em! You guys seem like you have a blast, and I’d love to cosplay with you all one day - unfortunately, I’m on the east coast, so I don’t ever get to any west coast cons… So it’s like “MAN, lookit these cool peeps! I will just have to spoop on them from afar”. (But I do hope we could meet one day, :D That would be awesome!)
Like what you mentioned, it’s hard to start that initial conversation with new people, so I figured this was a good time to do so.
SO HELLO, yes, I’m Kris, and I love P4, and I love all the stuff you and your friends post, and I think you’re all hella cool, : ) Thanks for all the content to laugh with and appreciate~
I wanna meet all of you, too! Can I join the fun? I live in the Midwest but we’re trying to go to all of the cons to promote our stuff ;__;
