Princess Elizabeth of the kingdom of Toro .
Full name Elizabeth Christobel Edith Bagaaya Akiiki
In addition to her Royal title, she is a lawyer, politician, diplomat, model and actress. She briefly (February 1974 - November 1974) served as Minister of Foreign Affairs under Idi Amin.
After finishing elementary school, she was sent to Gayaza High School, a prestigious female boarding high school in Buganda, followed by Sherborne School for Girls, in England, where she was the only black student. “I felt that I was on trial and that my failure to excel would reflect badly on the entire black race.” she later wrote. After one year, she was accepted to Cambridge, the third African woman in the institution’s history. In 1962 she graduated from Cambridge with a law degree.
The Princess is involved in Charity across the African continent and is now serving as Uganda’s Ambassador to Germany.
Princess Elizabeth of Toro: Lawyer, politician, diplomat, model and actress.
So, I was thinking about BBC Sherlock fandom’s hate-on for Sally Donovan, and just earlier today I was talking with Maria about Tara Thorton’s shitty treatment in True Blood.
And then I made myself a list.
You’re not fooling anyone, fandom. I know what’s up.
They want these women to be invisible and get upset when they’re not. Then they’re bitches, sexless (i.e. no chemistry with ANYONE), or sluts. And it’s not like the show writers don’t have the same problem, those tropes are a consistent fallback when it comes to any major characterization of black female characters. But when they step out of those tropes (Bonnie becoming more assertive, not just a support system for the white female lead; Martha wanting the Doctor to see her in a romantic way, not just as a support system for the white lead; Gwen being the LOVE object of several male characters, not just a support system for the white lead) fandom goes apeshit cause their worldview is being messed with. These women are not supposed to be important, loved, complicated in their minds, just easily forgotten once the episode is over.
Ok, I can only speak for the three characters/fandoms I recognize on the list (Martha/DrWho, Gwen/Merlin, Dualla/BSG) and for myself and my own view as a fan. (And I suppose, to clarify, I’m an independent professional single woman who mostly presents as white with a mix of asian).
The assumption that “fandom” wants these women to be invisible and then gets upset when they’re not, or when they break out of their supportive role tropes, is a very broad and frankly, inaccurate assumption to make. I love all of those characters. What made me angry is not that they ‘dared to break the trope’ but that The Powers That Be insisted on ramming a different trope down my throat. Here are women who COULD have been awesome, and instead we get their awesomeness overshadowed by ridiculous plots.
Martha? Martha was a BAMF. Martha saved the world. I wanted more of THAT Martha, not the Martha that wrecked herself pining over an alien on the rebound. Please don’t tell me that I, as part of fandom, wanted a Martha who could have been in a relationship with the Doctor - I don’t. I want the Martha who walked the Earth, I want the Martha who walked out, I want the Martha who came back strong, and who went off to save the world with Mickey. THAT’s the Martha I love, and I hated most of the emotional plot with the Doctor because it came off very pasted on and false and unnecessary for her. Martha didn’t need that to be awesome.
Gwen gets a pass as I enjoyed what I saw of her in Merlin’s first season and hadn’t yet been disillusioned. But again, please don’t tell me that I as ‘fandom’ should be ragging on her, because I’m not. I enjoy Gwen quite a bit more than Morgainne.
Dualla drew the ultimate short stick, relegated by TPTB into being Lee’s little fling with domesticity, again with the ultimate rebound relationship, and cheated on and treated as dirt by Lee with his obsession with Kara. I would like to punch Lee in the face, but more, I would like to punch TPTB in the collective face for reducing Dualla to that. WHY should Dualla be confined to her role in relation to the (white) male lead? Or ANY male lead? WHY couldn’t she have been awesome on her own??
“Fandom” is a large hive and doesn’t have one collective view on anything. Some of us don’t see women of color infringing on a white woman’s leading role. Some of us just see TPTB giving the short stick to female characters in general and fridging them for the sake of the male lead’s angst. I would LOVE to have seen these characters be as strong as they could have been and to see fandom flock around them for that reason, not because they did or didn’t land the male lead.
Bolded the comments that read as follows:
1. Martha was awesome after she accepted The Doctor wouldn’t love her and left the series. (ew, gross, unrequited love!)
2. Gwen was great when she was just that cute girl who picked flowers and wasn’t considered attractive to either of the male leads.
3. Lee’s treatment of Dualla totally makes her a worthless character, whereas she was perfect when her story had no effect on any of the main characters.
You totally missed the point of almost all of what I said, but hey. At least you’re not racist right?
*sips tea*
"i wanted to write a poem that rhymes, but the revolution doesn’t lend itself to be-bopping…so i thought again and it occurred to me maybe i shouldn’t write at all, but clean my gun and check my kerosene supply. perhaps these are not poetic times at all."
-nikki giovanni (via negrosunshine)Something -worse- than ACTA? Yes, it is: TTP.
“From what I can tell it’s even LESS known than ACTA. I haven’t even been able to find any YouTube videos on it.
Here are two lovely quotes I think you will find interesting:
“A leaked version of the February 2011 draft U.S. TPP Intellectual Property Rights Chapter indicates that U.S. negotiators are pushing for the adoption of copyright measures far more restrictive than currently required by international treaties, including the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.”
“The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is pursuing a TPP agreement that will require signatory counties to adopt heightened copyright protection that advances the agenda of the U.S. entertainment and pharmaceutical industries, but omits the flexibilities and exceptions that protect Internet users and technology innovators.”
Yep, more restrictive than ACTA.
Countries will be forced to rewrite their copyright laws and adopt this agreement’s (beyond sucky) laws.
I don’t really know much about this myself, but here are a few points summarized from the article:
-Temporary reproductions of copyrighted works without permission will count as infringement. (So I’m guessing you can’t put your music on an external drive if you’re getting a new computer?)
-Countries can’t import legitimate goods without copyright owner approval. (So basically Japan could say that USA is no longer allowed to import anime.)
-Extend the Life+70 years copyright in individual work, and the 95 years after publication/120 years for corporation stuff.
-Ban circumvention of digital locks. (DMCA is a whole host of issues in and of itself.)
-“Adopt criminal sanctions for copyright infringement that is done without a commercial motivation.” (Pretty self-explanatory there.)
-“Adopt the U.S. DMCA Internet Intermediaries copyright safe harbor regime in its entirety. This would require Chile to rewrite its forward-looking 2010 copyright law that currently provides for a judicial notice and takedown regime, which provides greater protection to Internet users’ expression and privacy than the DMCA’s copyright safe harbor regime.” (Couldn’t have said it better myself.)” - WindieDragonMother of fucking god, I am seriously getting tired of the fucking US continuously fucking trying to fuck shit up by making so much fucking shit and caring so fucking much about fucking copyright and fucking intellectual fucking property fucking problems when there are so many other fucking much more fucking important fucking problems that have to be fucking taken fucking care of. Fuck.
I don’t fucking care if this will fucking fill my fucking fuck quota of the fucking month, holy fucking shit balls on a dick.
I don’t fucking even fucking FUCK.
Just spread this shit. Just fucking do it.
Iwan Rheon & Antonia Thomas at the VIP Gala screening of Shame (Jan 10, 2012)
Happy Bday Angela!
Activist, Scholar, Writer, Professor and FBI’s most wanted
When Angela Davis strode on the political stage with her fist raised high and her iconic Afro standing higher, people noticed. She is a rebel and a revolutionary, a bookish philosopher who has lived out her theories with action and purpose.
Smart, stylish, eloquent and fearless, Davis never lets her style get in the way of the substance. Her life’s work has been built around issues of race, community and the criminal justice system. In the 70s, she was involved with The Black Panthers, but much of her energy was focused on what she termed the Prison-Industrial Complex, the systematic privatization of prisons as profit-making machines. This means the more people in prison, the more lucrative the business. Hence, the absurd increase in men (mostly poor, young, black) sent to U.S prisons in the last two decades.
Davis herself was on the run from the law in the 70s, following the murder of a California judge. Innocent, she went into hiding, which sparked a nationwide search and worldwide media attention, propelling her to the FBI’s most wanted list. Two months later, she was arrested in a motel in midtown Manhattan. Despite pressure from famous rightwing fear-mongers – Richard Nixon (who branded Davis a “terrorist”), the then California governor Ronald Reagan and rat-bag FBI director J Edgar Hoover – Davis became an international cause celebre. A global campaign called for her release and Aretha Franklin offered to post quarter of a million dollars in bail. She was acquitted in the end.
Angela Davis inspired people all over the world, including John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who recorded their song “Angela” on their 1972 album, Some Time in New York City. The Rolling Stones also wrote about Davis, recording the song “Sweet Black Angel” on their 1972 album, Exile on Main Street.
Davis is now a retired professor with the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz and is the former director of the university’s Feminist Studies Department. She is also the founder of Critical Resistance, an organization working against the Prison-Industrial Complex.
