We Interrupt Srs Blog Bzns to Bring You a Signal Boost!

A friend of a friend is creating a new game about colonialism and the consequences of imperialism. From the Kickstarter description:

Dog Eat Dog is a game of colonialism and its consequences. As a group, you work together to describe one of the hundreds of small islands in the Pacific Ocean, defining the customs of the natives and the mores of the outsiders arriving to claim it. One player then assumes the role of the Occupation force, playing their capable military, their quisling government, and whatever jaded tourists and shrewd businessmen are interested in a not quite pacified territory. All the others play individual Natives, each trying in their own ways to come to terms with the new regime. The game begins when the war ends. Through a series of scenes, you play out the inevitably conflicted relationship between the two parties, deciding what the colonizers do to maintain control, which natives assimilate and which run amok, and who ends up owning the island in the end. The game will come in the form of a book, with the full rules, author's notes that explain the design process, and a brief historical overview of colonization in the Pacific.

Liam Liwanag Burke talks about his fun and creative way to create conversations about the consequences of colonialism and educate people on the history of the Pacific Islands, his background and motivations that led him to create this game, and the plans for the Kickstarter monies.

If you have any spare monies, please consider backing this history-based POC-created project that is designed to communicate how colonialism systemically affects people psychologically. 

Link of Interest: Tweets on White Media and Magical POC

My friend yeloson tweeted a series of observations about white media and how POC are portrayed in them, to the point that these portrayals are accepted as truth and become part of basic psychology. This is part of how racism works, repeating the same interpretation over and over again until it becomes just plain "logical" to take them into consideration. And this has consequences in our activism as well. 

On Aloneness, and Points of Reference

I have just devoured the fourth book of the Parasol Protectorate, which, as one can expect, is a terribly satisfying read, even with all the twists and turns and mistakes the characters have made, especially Alexia's, and I'm pleased to see her making such huge missteps. I'm not sure I buy the passage of time in this story, though, but that's not what I want to write about today.

Carriger has introduced a very different voice into the narrative this time, one distinctly un-Alexia, marked in italics. I was kind of confused at first (I thought it was an actual chicken! what with the discussion on whether animals have souls. The hardcore PETA kids are going to have a fit) but eventually pieced together who it was, and the sentiments expressed in it hit me in a peculiar place. Spoilers under the cut in case you wish to be warned.