The racial issues I talk about

There was one comment I got a few weeks ago on one of my posts that’s been in my head for a while now. I won’t name names even though I have nothing against this blogger at all. They discovered Ospreyshire’s Realm through another blogger I follow since I’ve commented on multiple posts of theirs.

To paraphrase what they said, they’ve said that I talk a lot about racial/POC issues.

Do I talk about those issues? Yes, and I’ve been doing so before the recent police brutality cases this year. I’ve shared news stories, written poems with that topic, mentioned it in some film reviews on my other blog, written stories with that as a concept (usually on the more subtle end while doing my best to have positive racial representation), and I even have recordings that allude to racial issues especially with my “They Dreamed of Devastation and Deceit (Circle of Lies)” single and multiple tracks from my first full-length album “Dear Innovare…”. This is something I do care about not just on principle given my heritage, but also because it’s a human issue and I wish more people would realize it.

I wasn’t like this at first when I started blogging when I came up with the Ospreyshire project and eventually my other blogs. I didn’t talk about those subjects at first on here since it was mainly for my first EP, my more innocuous poems, and promoting other people on this blog. Things took a bit of a change where I started to talk about these particular issues in overt and abstract ways (mainly with my creative projects) in my other blogs and it trickled down here. It’s been surprising how supportive people have been with what I’ve been blogging about since I revealed my racial identity, talked about some of my personal experiences on that matter, and to expose more people to these important issues whether it’s with some conversations, poems, music, news stories, film reviews, or personal opinions on different subjects. 2020 wasn’t some trendy thing for me to talk about these subjects. I’ve been doing so before that. I used to shy away from these topics offline most of the time, but I can’t hide or certainly lie about these things. Blogging has made me braver and more outspoken whether it’s talking about racism or at the very least mentioning uncomfortable truths or unpopular opinions.

Before I finish this post, I do have some advice for some of my readers out there on this subject.

1. Don’t make racism a partisan issue at all especially in this election year. This isn’t a left-wing or right-wing issue since both sides have been guilty of bigotry. This is a HUMAN issue, as I’ve said before.

2. Get (un)comfortable learning lesser-known parts of history. Learning about Black Wall Street was the first big example for me of a real life part of American history I never learned about during all my years of schooling.

3. Realize that even so-called “innocent” media can contain harmful subtext. Watch how things can be slanted or what the implications could be in a story, movie, TV show, etc.

I hope this post worked in some way for you. I wanted to do something more constructive than just ranting and raging over everything even with what’s going on right now. That doesn’t mean I’m ignoring these issues at all. Have a great day, everyone.