Save the Pearls

In a world... where the sun shines harshly down upon our wasted earth...

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Black people are super cool and have all the money and power because their dark skin lets them go around in the strong sunlight unhurt and stuff and it's a symbol of strength. But for poor pale-skinned, blonde, blue-eyed white girls, they are the lowest caste, "pearls" because they, like, get sunburn easily or something. And to make matters worse, this poor young thing must mate before she gets old and ugly because Young Adult Fiction authors have no idea what to do with middle aged characters she turns 18, or else SHE WILL DIE. And her mate rate is 15%! 15, man! (or on her bio page, 18%) Her only hope is to put on blackface and try to attract a powerful member of the coal caste to be her mate. Because shit like this matters and is totally not a pile of racist bullshit.



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OH GOD WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE POOR WHITE PEOPLE?

PDF TIME, BITCHES

"A terrifying future, which is all to easy to imagine".

A FUTURE WHERE BLACK PEOPLE ARE DOMINANT? THE HORROR!!!

Come on, this is Klan rhetoric verbatim!

This, uh. This is not how you do dystopian sci-fi.

Penguin wrote:

This, uh. This is not how you do dystopian sci-fi.

I'm also pretty sure skin colouration/heat resistance doesn't quite work that way.

wtf is this shit? wrote:

'...she'll be left outside to die in the Heat.'

That...can't be a coincidence.

TheHedonist wrote:

wtf is this shit? wrote:

'...she'll be left outside to die in the Heat.'

That...can't be a coincidence.

eh? A coincindence of what?

Quote :

coal caste

I'm a bit confused that the powerful caste is called the coal caste, because of all the black things, coal doesn't sound that fancy. But I guess coal is more useful than pearls.

Lurv wrote:

Quote :

coal caste

I'm a bit confused that the powerful caste is called the coal caste, because of all the black things, coal doesn't sound that fancy. But I guess coal is more useful than pearls.

Because the author is a horribly racist twit?

Albinos = cotton (lowest of the low)
White = pearl
Latinate = Tigerseye
Asian = Amber
Black = Coal

Yes, because Onyx, Jet, hematite and a zillion other brown stones aren't relevant. No, you guys get to be coal to denote your high status. Nevermind that pearls come naturally in many colours, including black anyway. 9_9

Or that cotton is naturally brown before you bleach it...

Sakurelf wrote:

Lurv wrote:

Quote :

coal caste

I'm a bit confused that the powerful caste is called the coal caste, because of all the black things, coal doesn't sound that fancy. But I guess coal is more useful than pearls.

Because the author is a horribly racist twit?

Yeah, it still seems weird though. The highest chaste should sound most special. I guess the author wanted to have their cake and eat it too (I hate that expression, but oh well).

Also, that cover. Ugh. They couldn't even split it evenly so it would look somewhat nice. How hard can that be?


Okay, I watched that video, and I love how she says that she would rather die than mate with another one of her kind, even though "pearls aren't as bad as they say blah blah blah". And she's shown to have such a terrible life and all!

This just keeps getting dumber.

(drunk)

Yeah, the caste-naming alone rings the bullshit alarm.

Is that how it really boils down in the stories?

I mean, of all the notions of white people dying out... this is probably the sloppiest dystopia wrapped around that concept that I've come across so far.

After all, it's a legitimate concept: Racial extinction is something that is a driving force in many factions' politics. (If you don't think so, visit a native American reservation some time). Rationally or no, the idea that, in a few generations, there won't be anyone left who looks like you or shares your culture is terrifying to a lot of people. On the other hand, the rest of society tends to want to shut out reminders of the conquered that it deems illegitimate.

For example... South Park. There've been a total of three Native American characters on that show that I can think of: One is a stereotype, one is a casino strawman, and one is a white guy wearing a headdress who's easily offended by everything. In other words: They're not legit anymore. The only people left clinging to that notion are brown people with dollar signs in their eyes and white people looking for racial legitimacy.

Hell, there've been plenty of studies that show white people are dying out; before long, redheads and blondes will cease to exist, and people will become darker on average... but the roots of this are uncomfortable for the concerned: For the most part, white people live in first-world settings, where having a lot of kids is hardly conducive to a free and fulfilling lifestyle. They don't have kids, or at least, they reproduce in limited numbers.

If you're worried that 100 years from now, there might not be any white people, this could be cause for concern. But the idea of "our race isn't fucking enough" doesn't really sell the idea of being a victim, so you have to find a way to blame everyone else.

In this case, epic sunburns.

L-oh-fucking-L.

(/drunk)

I keep waiting for someone to dig into the background of the author and I also look forward to the inevitable "it's totes not racists" defense complete with "some of my best friends are black" defense. Yeah, I know I shouldn't laugh at rancid bigotry, but sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying. Plus it's easier to laugh, given that this author along with the rest of her inbred redneck breed is a dying breed.

I heard about this when someone linked me to this rant. My favorite part:

Quote :

I think the twist ending of the book should be there are no black ppl & it's all white ppl in blackface cluelessly oppressing each other.

myeerah wrote:

I heard about this when someone linked me to this rant. My favorite part:

Quote :

I think the twist ending of the book should be there are no black ppl & it's all white ppl in blackface cluelessly oppressing each other.

THEY WERE IN JERSEY ALL ALONG!

Okay, tried to do some digging around, but still haven't found much on this author. For once, Wikipedia wasn't superhelpful. Still tracked down her blog at GoodReads so for those devoted to tearing apart bad literature, this may provide you with a little more ammunition. I haven't read it that deeply thus far, but I was shocked to discover that this isn't the work of some idiot teenager mistakenly hailed as a prodigy ala Amelia Atwater-Rhodes or Christopher Paolini, but a grown woman. I'm forced to conclude that she's an adult because Wikipedia lists all these other projects she was involved in and unless you can point me towards some examples of toddlers writing screen plays, I have to conclude she's an adult.

Still here's a few pearls (and yes that pun was intended) from her blog.

Quote :

In the novel I aimed to turn racism on its head, hoping to portray its horrors and its inevitable road to violence. The dust jacket photo shows Eden’s face half white and half dark. She is shedding a false cover, and learning to accept herself—a journey we all must take, regardless of race.

Quote :

I'm white, and except for our housekeeper, everyone I knew in my hometown in the Southeast was white. It was a white world with white actors on TV and white models and white teachers and a white president. There were a few Cuban kids in my private high school, but just a few.

And of course, a white kid who grew up surrounded by other white kids is the best candidate for writing fiction dealing with racial issues. Look, I'm not going to say everyone has to be the same race of the characters they write about, otherwise Tolkien would be in trouble for not having pointy ears, but even a sheltered white kid has to know that race is a very loaded issue in America even to this day (Trayvon Martin case, anyone?) and that if you don't handle it properly, you'll come across as a sheltered white kid who thinks that because she passed a black kid in the hall on her way to Algebra, that totally means she knows about black people and that because she's never uttered the n-word or held a cross-burning, she can't possibly be racist.




Lordy...you wouldn't think it'be possible to find the female version of Priviledge-Denying Dude, but here we are.

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Judging a book by its cover gives birth to racism

For reeeeaaaalz

Quote :

If global warming results in a meltdown of the ozone layer many things would change, including the inability of those with little melanin in their skin to survive the blistering effects of increased deadly solar radiation. In humans, melanin is the primary determinant of skin color. People with dark skin have more melanin and, although they also get skin cancer, they do not contract it at the high rates of those with fair skin.

SCIENCE FAIL.

Quote :

In Revealing Eden, “The Heat” (basically, skin cancer) wipes out the majority of people with light skin. Then people with dark skin are in the majority. In this future world, because those with fairer skin suffer a debilitating, perhaps fatal condition, they are considered second-rate.

SOCIOLOGY FAIL

Quote :

And there is reason to support my belief when you consider that the novel has won five literary awards, including the Eric Hoffer Best Young Adult Novel 2012 (Eric Hoffer was a great humanitarian), or that Marianne Williamson called it on her Facebook page, “A fascinating story…for lovers of all ages!” or that dozens of reviewers from the San Francisco Book Review to Fresh Fiction to many book bloggers have embraced it with glowing reviews.

And if you ask if all these reviewers are white then consider that you have a racist point of view.

LITERARY FAIL

Mouse wrote:

Lordy...you wouldn't think it'be possible to find the female version of Priviledge-Denying Dude, but here we are.

Why wouldn't you?

why

why do ppl do this

why can't you have like

blue ppl

and green ppl

and orange ppl

and gold ppl

srsly

That KA-BOOM! you just heard was my brain exploding at the thought of the near-apocalyptic level of fail contained in "Save The Pearls".

Penguin wrote:

Mouse wrote:

Lordy...you wouldn't think it'be possible to find the female version of Priviledge-Denying Dude, but here we are.

Why wouldn't you?

Yeah, I know it was really stupid of me to say that, especially since I get pretty vocal whenever someone talks about how if women ran everything, it'd be a utopia because we're all in touch with nature and nuturing and all that shit. Uh yeah, clearly they haven't heard of Margaret Thatcher. But it appears I fell into that trap, assuming that a grown woman couldn't be that sheltered and that stupid. I now apologize and throw myself on the mercy of the court. If it helps, I can be helpful in gathering others to toil in your underground sugar mines.

Still, Stephenie Meyer should have been enough of a clue that you really can be published and an adult and still be that clueless. It almost makes me long for Christopher Paolini: at least you could chalk up his ignorance to living in Bumfuck, Montana with his parents and being constantly surrounded by people who tell him what prodigy he is. Also, he hasn't pulled anything on the offense level of Save the Pearls.

Didn't they make this movie already?

Oh, yeah.

It's not exactly an original idea given how many times it's been done.

There's plenty of people from oppressed groups who buy into the oppressors' defence. See Phyllis Schlafly, the woman who stays away from home leading a group dedicated to make sure women stay at home and don't lead anything.

Yeah I know. Despite me being aware of Phyllis Schafly and her ilk, I still fell into that trap. I feel somewhat ashamed.

Still, how could she not be aware that regardless of gains made by the civil rights movement that race is an incredibly loaded issue in America and she'd probably puss off more than just a few people by depicting her heroine in blackface.