[ SECRET POST #2046 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2046 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 021 secrets from Secret Submission Post #292.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - spam secret ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[mekkio]

Thank you. The choices of "pearls" and "coals" are awful. I would have gone with something that makes more sense in the world building storyline like Jet, (a gemstone that is made from strong, ancient material to represent a strong, precious, ever lasting people) and Ghosts (No places in society and unwanted where ever they are.) The fact that the author went with Pearls and Coals without explaining why she did so just screams of racism.

[(Anonymous)]

She has come up with some kind of explanation (from wiki):

She said that the name "Coal" was supposed to be a positive name. "What good will a pearl do you when luxury items have no use? Coal has energy, fire, and real value. It is durable and strong, not easily crushed like a pearl. Pearl is a pejorative term here. Coals are admired. Coals oppress Pearls because they fear that those with light skin will add to a population unable to survive "The Heat," and drain meager resources," she said.

She has apparently not learned that a work like 'coal' is a word with a loaded history of being used as a racial slur and that she cannot erase this history with a shitty YA book.. Context. And yes, jet would be better - a slight improvement to this shitstorm of a "novel".

[gobbledigook]

I figured it was something like that, and it sounds even stupider now that she put it in words...

[tabaqui]

Not doubting you, but i've never heard of 'coal' as a racial slur, or as anything other than describing the actual thing and/or 'coal mining', etc. How/when was it used? Yes, i've heard of 'coal black', but that was always used as a descriptor for something that was the color black and shiny/polished. (Apparently, if you 'rub' coal, it will be kind of satiny and polished looking.)

warning for racial slurs?

[anonymouslyyours]

I know "coal-baby" was used back in the day and "coal-miner" has some history with Russians as being a slur for black people. Other than that IDK.

Most people I've seen have mostly take issue with the fact that coal is a pollutant, leaves dust behind on what it touches, and has less market value than a pearl.

Re: warning for racial slurs?

[tabaqui]

Huh. I've heard tar-baby, but never coal-baby. And, ah ha, i know pretty much nothing about Russian slang.

[lilacsigil]

Yep, it's a late Victorian/early 20th century racist term. For a famous usage, blues singer Leadbelly wrote a song about the Titanic and included a verse about wealthy and famous African American boxer Jack Johnson: "When Jack Johnson tried to get on board, Captain said 'We ain't hauling no coal.'"

[truxillogical]

Yeeeaah...that's still pretty made of fail, sense it still phrases pearl as a "luxury item" and coal as something that is "durable and strong." Even if it's set in a world where strength is more important than luxury, it doesn't really erase the fact that the whole "well, they're so strong..." mindset was still a thing.

Ugh. This person. This person just needs to issue a formal apology to the human race.

[(Anonymous)]

Pearls are useless and only serve as decoration, and coal is the energy source that powered the industrial revolution and ushered in the modern age? But I'm doubting that's what they were going for.

[(Anonymous)]

And now I see that it was and I feel like a douche...

[anonymouslyyours]

No! You are a lovely and kind human being. Or at least you are not Victoria Foyt so you get a not-a-douche pass in my book.

[(Anonymous)]

I read the book (I have a thing about self-punishment), and actually "coals" seems to be a slur, as the time the MC shouted it at the black people around her, they all turned on her. I suppose since it's from the girl's POV, we'll never know what term black people would use for themselves. Perhaps something like... people... but who can say?

This book, though. I downloaded it illegally, but I regret not having a physical copy so that I could set the motherfucking thing on fire. Maybe I'll print a few pages later.

[anonymouslyyours]

That incident was prompted when Eden was touched by a member of a race she's supposed to believe is superior to her and hopes to "mate" with. What?

[(Anonymous)]

God, I didn't even put that together. It's even worse than I thought. I'm going to have to just burn my computer. It's the only way.

[anonymouslyyours]

Reading that book there were so many double layers of racism that the author probably wasn't even aware of. I was actually pretty impressed the book was more racist than the ONTD post made it out to be.

The youtube videos are the worst thing I have ever watched. Did you see that youtube profile where the woman says something like "I don't have any family to chase you if you beat me."?

All of the Coal dating profiles are even more failtastic.
http://www.savethepearls.com/members/natedogg/

[(Anonymous)]

I did see that video. I still can't come up with a response. I... have not seen the dating profiles. Somehow, I overlooked the left column and read the other one as some oddly formatted poetry. Imagine my disappointment when I figured out the context.

[anonymouslyyours]

If only she'd spent half as much time writing as she did on making all those fake profiles, videos, and fake reviews.

[rtydmartel]

Maybe it's all one elaborated trolling, and the people behind the idea will turn out to be something like the Amnesty International or something and it will all turn out to be a ploy to raise awareness against prejudice and everyone who fell for it will feel bad and do some introspection?

Please? D:

[biohazardgirl]

. . .Oh my god I had been ignoring this because I was just like "well, it's a book" but they have a whole WEBSITE AND VIDEOS TOO?

In hindsight, that was much more likely than everyone on tumblr having read a whole book, but there you go.

[anonymouslyyours]

[biohazardgirl]

Oh, god, I'm an awful person though because I haven't read a whole fictional book in eight months.

But I legit didn't know about this website. This is crazy! Why did she put so much effort into this. So much for letting your work stand on its own. . .

[(Anonymous)]

My friend an I were thinking that Chalk would have been a better term for the white people. Nobody likes chalk, come on. And then the book would have been called Save the Chalk.

[mekkio]

That would make it sound like a teaching manual. And chalk does have a purpose. It makes a mark. It tells the world that something or someone was or is here. Even now there are cave paintings tens of thousands of years old made from chalk. That's amazing to me.

But a ghost? Something dead to the world, mostly unseen and unwanted by everyone? That's why I like that choice.

Still chalk is a way better choice than pearl.

[(Anonymous)]

Or like Obsidian vs Chalk... or something like that. Obsidian is beautiful, smooth, shiny, black, and strong (not seriously precious, but I personally love it aha). Chalk is weak, dusty, dissolves, isn't precious in any way.

I dunno. The whole "reversing the races" thing is really problematic anyways, regardless of the terms the author used.

[firefly99]

The popular YA book on this theme when I was a young teen was Noughts and Crosses by Mallory Blackman. In that, black people were the privileged class because black scholars had translated the Bible in such a way to insist that black people were God's chosen people (hence Crosses, always capitalised). And noughts were so called because they were nothing.