Winter Has Come #CapricornSeason

Norma Wood. 17mm, f16, 20 ", ISO 200 Image Credit: Akos Kiss

To some, December means the end of the year, the end of the warmth and the return of caramel macchiato and pumpkin spice latte addictions.

For me, December means the end of stress, other people’s labor and the beginning of beautiful snowy landscapes, family gatherings and time I can call my own.  I have time to dive into ideas I dreamed up during the summer months and tackle fall’s loose ends.  I’ve always done my best writing and thinking over winter breaks.  Something about the cool air just clears my brain of all the clutter.

Winter is here.  Capricorn season is upon us.

And so is 2012.  Sooooooo much happened….

Honor & Human Rights to Halmeoni (Grandmothers) x 1000

If I was a middle-class white man with too much time on his hands

Never mind.  News about black folks (read: African-American)  is capital these days.  Especially news that appears to cross conversations occurring within the community with the megaphone of an unsympathetic outsider.  I’m not a Google spider, but I can only imagine a certain host website exploded its monthly click and traffic quota this month.  And I won’t help since there are so many amazing critiques floating about.*

What did not get much burn this week was this:

South Korean women forced into wartime sexual slavery held their 1,000th weekly protest outside Japan’s embassy yesterday, demanding compensation and an apology from Tokyo as they have since 1992.

The (Confederate) Flag and the (Black) Student

Um, this happened:

Byron Thomas is 19, black, a freshman at the University of South Carolina Beaufort and a proud Southerner. He hung a Confederate flag in his dorm room window until the university asked him to take it down because several people had complained about it. (The university later stepped back from the request, saying all students have the right to free speech.)

“I know it’s kinda weird because I’m black,” Thomas said in an iReport he submitted. “When I look at this flag, I just don’t see racism. I see pride, respect. Southern pride, that’s what I see.”

“Ignorance gave that flag a bad name, ignorant people like the KKK,” he told CNN’s Don Lemon.

And this happened:

Loving Vampire Diaries: Why History, Slavery and Race in Fandom Matters

Bonnie (Kat Graham) and Emily (Bianca Lawson) in CW's Vampire Diaries

I spent a good chunk of my Thanksgiving break falling into the CW’s Vampire Diaries (thank you @Netflix).  In the process I turned Little Sis, T the Great and Nuñez Mom into fangirls and addicts.

I didn’t mean to get sucked in.  I cut my tween Sable Fan Gyrl teeth on the original Vampire Diaries trilogy (plus one post mortem) by L. J. Smith.  And when the CW series started, I was determined not to watch because it couldn’t possibly be as amazing as the books were.  I was convinced the casting was all wrong and a little pissed the disgusting success of Meyer’s Twilight was the only reason anyone even seemed interested in L. J. Smith fandom.

I was stupid, ignorant and wrong all at once.