Most recent public comments by Chloe Heidepriem https://nowcomment.com/users/17106 https://nowcomment.com/documents/36344?scroll_to=408489 https://nowcomment.com/documents/36344?scroll_to=408489 I was interested in this idea of "white tears" as well, because tears typically imply some kind of empathetic connection to the subject that is being discussed. The speaker seems to instead view the tears as a process of othering, as he suggests by the final line, "the magnitude of destruction... my people underwent was cast out as other in white eyes misty not only with renunciation but also with exoticism." It can be argued that one cannot truly empathize with a situation until one has had first-hand experience with it. Because the audience presumably has not experienced such large scale destruction, their tears may not be viewed as genuine signifiers of empathy. Wed, 11 Nov 2015 22:07:18 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/36342?scroll_to=406890 https://nowcomment.com/documents/36342?scroll_to=406890 Nguyen states that Americans would rather confront stories of fictional horror than confront the “domestic horror” of how the individual is complicit in acts of war when their country is at war. I think that this fixation on fictional violence, like the that of zombies, vampires or serial killers, comes from the desire for having a clear distinction between good and evil or hero and villain. Having these strictly established binaries is comforting to an audience because there is a clear force with which to ally oneself and a clear force in opposition. This seemingly clear-cut binary then serves as justification for the use of violence to enact domination of one group over the other. Because fictional horror functions in terms of the good vs. evil binary that we so desperately want to be true, it is easy to accept. In contrast, the “domestic horror” described by Nguyen does not function within a binary at all, but is complex in its relation to the system of capitalist America. It is difficult for individuals to accept their complicity in war through consumer spending because there is a disconnect between intention and result that also does not function within a binary. While spending and consuming are motivated by individual needs, the collective effect of these individual needs is supporting industry that ultimately supports war. Our individual intentions are good (or at least neutral), but the results are somehow evil. In this way, the inability to accept responsibility for promoting war as a capitalist consumer comes from the disconnect we feel between our intentions and the collective end results. Mon, 09 Nov 2015 20:04:21 -0500