Viacom Showing How Power + Prejudice = Racism

Viacom has sent Zazzle a cease and desist and it has pulled the Racebending.Com merchandise from its offerings.

More information and image files of the correspondence here @glockgal on livejournal. But apparently it's a violation of copyright to use even the word Aang.

Below is the c/p of my letter sent to Viacom via this form. Because who knows what way they'll find of ignoring/returning/disappearing this mail. Actually I can't find any mechanism to find send. Let's hope this is some odd cluenessness and momentary techno-ignorance on my part. I will update if I get it sent. UPDATE: It appears to have been my browser being resoundingly weird.

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Dear Viacom,

"Aang Can Save The World And Still Be Asian"

So is this attempt to stop that message plain bullying, or a need for more bad press?

If you didn't want fans protesting, then perhaps you and your subsidiary and employees shouldn't have been so blatantly racist in your casting and appropriating of an Majority Asian/Minority World:

Inuit, Chinese, Tibetan, South Asian/East Indian, Korean, Mayan and more.

Are you going to send cease and desist letters to fans holding up plaque cards and banners because they use the name Aang?

You can close down the Zazzle shop, but you can't shut us up. You've messed up. Big time. And you just keep showing how power + prejudice contributes to institutional racism.

Willow / Organizer
People of Color in Science Fiction & Fantasy Blog Carnival

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Hi, my name is Willow. I'm an African Caribbean 30mumble woman, who loves Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko's Avatar: The Last Aribender, an Asian Hero Fantasy Story.

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It is my fault that I haven't kept up on things. A couple of days ago I got a letter from one of those involved in Racebending.com, about a response letter than MANAA (Media Action Network for Asian Americans) had sent to Paramount Pictures. It is a reply to Paramount Pictures' excused. I got this email 10 days ago. Now parts of the protest are being attacked.

If anyone wants to say that Viacom and thus Paramount Pictures have every right to protect their copyright of images. I want to stress again that the design they object to are the words "Aang Is ASIAN". Maybe their many lawyers were on cold medicine and that's why certain items have been pulled and others have not. Maybe it's Zazzle. Or maybe those other items seem positive promotion.


MANAA's Main Points:

· The outdated and discriminatory practice of casting white actors to depict Asian characters.

· Casting calls indicating a preference for white actors for leads; people of color for extras.

· Culturally ignorant language used by members of the production (e.g. DeeDee Rickets: “If you’re a Korean, wear a kimono” to the casting call).

· The implications of featuring a villainous nation with dark-skinned, partly South Asian actors and a heroic nation led by white heroes who liberate the “Asian and African” nation.

· Cultural appropriation of Pacific Rim cultures and the franchise's core Asian concepts, despite a glass ceiling blocking off Asian American actors from playing lead protagonists.

Listing the ethnic composition of five cast members does not directly address these outstanding issues and only serves to obscure the fact that you are making rationalizations to white-wash this project hoping to bring in more viewers. The conventional wisdom in Hollywood is that in order for fantasy/science fiction/superhero movies to become successful, they must first pass muster with fans of the original source material. You are clearly not passing that bar."

Note: If Ms. Starling would like me to take down the quote, I will.

Go here for the complete timeline of Viacom/Paramount Pictures Racist Fail.

Kinky Thoughts

It's near a reasonable hour of the morning and I haven't slept. I'm too old for this. Really. I'm not sucking down caffeine. I wasn't even watching a movie. I've just felt out of sorts. Actually I've felt tired.

Everytime I think of posting to Seeking Avalon, I've felt all sorts of exhausted, pained, weak even. My brain does not want to deal with jackasses. Or even the reminders of jackasses. I've used up all my extraneous race spoons for 2009 already. And by extraneous I mean the spoons I don't need for my day to day, face to face life.

I've not followed up or pushed for a new PoC in SF Carnival. There are things happening, good things. Things I should link. Things I will link when the thought of it doesn't make my chest seize up in wonder of what jackass fools will follow and try to show up all goatse over there.

For now, however, I want to talk about my bulletproof kink. And no, it does not involve asses. Well, not directly. I've never quite gotten the fascination with Green Lantern Butts.

Willow's Bulletproof Kink - Ensembles.

For years in fandom I've been hearing about people's BulletProof Kinks and how it led them to read terrible stories online and in terrible books by terrible authors [ insert your own hated author here ]. And I kind of didn't get it. I knew I sort of got it. But I wasn't sure why I wasn't getting it completely. I just knew nothing clicked. And it's not as if I couldn't understand the concept. I do have other kinks.

I have Comfort Kinks and Relationship Kinks etc... Maybe I"ll write about those one day.

But I've finally realized that my hands down, absolute, total BulletProof Kink, is Ensembles.

I read Annihilation Conquest for the Ensemble, even though I knew absolutely none of the characters involved.

Green Lantern Corps - Rainbow Wars, keeps catching my eye like a girl in a short flouncy skirt, despite the fact that the rest of DC gives me stomach burn. I mean, I'v been avoiding hearing about Batman that's how bad the stomach burn has been.

But GLC has - Ensembles. I don't give much of a frigging crap about most of those guys individually. I'm sorry folks (Fickle, Kalinara [also I think]) but I don't drool over Kyle. I also kind of want to - ok, not shove a stick up Hal's ass. But I would not at all be opposed to watching a very sadistic woman tie Hal up and do unspeakable things to him. I'd bring sparkling apple cider and possibly a change of underwear. (Sorry, Daddy. Avert your eyes. Or uhm, have some mental bleach).

But I like seeing Hal and Kyle as part of the Earthmen Green Lanterns (also - at some point in the future someone has to just frigging go for 7 and make a girl who isn't Jade and is thus stable and formidable etc).

I like seeing whole swathes of Lanterns I've never seen before if the plot has to do with something that must be faced by the Corps as a team; Something that affects the ensemble that makes a whole.

I've realized that I enjoyed Buffy The Vampire Slayer, for the ensemble. Angel: The Series - again, I loved the ensemble and my favourite configuration will always be: Angel, Cordelia, Doyle. It holds a special place in my heart.

The LOTR movie trilogy? Yeah, I like it more than the book (though expect me to be a stickler annoying fan when it comes to the Hobbit. Oh boy.) I like the emphasis on ensemble there as well one group, split and then split again and coming together and gathering others and just....

Hmmm Willow is happy in her happy place.

Some people might point out I've professed to being bored with the Fantastic 4. And it's true. But they're a family, not an ensemble, at least to me. An ensemble can be created family, but it's an ensemble first. It's about remarkably different people coming together for a cause, having it bind them to each other and create shared experiences no one else might understand.

I've a friend who calls her BulletProof Kink - "The Arranged Marriage". She likes when two people are bound like that, growing in ways outsiders can't understand and supporting each other for reasons other people won't comprehend.

I used to think my BulletProof Kink was "The Unexpected Soulmate", wherein two people discover that the someone who is extremely different from them, with different life experiences and attitudes, beneath the surface has the same needs and desires, hurts and sore places. Soulmate makes it seem solely romantic. But Kindred Spirit always strikes me as just a touch too Anne of Green Gables.

"The Unexpected Soulmate" might still be my BPK for relationship stories. But for stories in general? What will get me to pick something up and keep reading it is the Ensemble.

And as I began to think about it, I realized that even with characters I heart extremely, my favourite stories about them happen to be Ensemble stories. It's just that when the main focus is on one character, the ensemble gets called "Supporting Cast".

Wonder Woman: Down To Earth. (by Greg Ruka) Love it. Love it. Love it. But not just for how WW is represented, but because of the Ensemble around her.

Batman? I love him best interacting with others, whether his Ensemble is the Nolanesque Fox, Pennyworth & Gordon. Or the Batclan.

And I think it's easier for me to find stories like that for Batman than for Superman. Since stories about him, are usually stories about him and to get what I want the story would have to include Lois Lane and Perry and have Jimmy not be annoying. Lois & Clark the tv series gave good Ensemble. Especially the tag team Martha and Johnathan Kent each on one end of the house landline on Clark's calls home.

Starship Troopers: Roughneck Chronicles.... That happy space is PURE Ensemble.

Of course while it's great to realize this about myself and why I'll be attracted to certain books (Harry Dresden - again, seriously good Ensemble) it'll be better to figure out how this factors into my own writing. It's bound to change my perspective on things. Or I hope it will.

So besides telling me I have to get my hands on Rainbow Wars (y'all know if I can't have digital access I'll wait for Trades and borrow them from the library - yeah, DC has seriously hurt and burnt me. Marvel too). What else is out there that you think has good Ensemble work?

And what are your BulletProof Kinks (reading wise, folks, reading wise)?

How far have you gone, what horrible things have you read because your kink was going strong and good?

Who do you consider part of the Ensemble around your favourite characters? Gotham counts for me, when it comes to Batman and the Batclan. And often if Gotham isn't living and breathing, then I can't enjoy the story.

What supporting cast characters have you loved and missed who have since gone the way of limbo's foyer/waiting room - you hope and not the way of the dodo?

What addition to an Ensemble made you turn away? I know I couldn't read X-men with Emma Frost in it, way before I gave up on Marvel.

Wow...I'm actually soliciting discussion and conversation here. I must be tired.

*goes to sleep*

My Money's Too Lavender

Heather Has Too Mommies is Too Gay for Amazon.com.

The children's book is among many books that include GLBT individuals, which have now been deemed 'too adult for the general public search' on the website.

Links:

* Amazon Thinks You Should Be Protected From Gay Books

* Amazon Follies

* List Of Books Affected

* Meta Link List / More Blogging

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In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude "adult" material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.

Hence, if you have further questions, kindly write back to us.

Best regards,

Ashlyn D
Member Services
Amazon.com Advantage

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I have emailed via their customer service device when logged in. I am also collecting alternate places to buy MP3's from and will no longer buy things via Amazon for my older relatives when they need an online purchase.

New tag: bigotry like a fungus

Asian Woman Carnival #1

The Asian Woman Carnival is live @Yennenga (a community on livejournal).

Despite the mental break I've been taking from things like this - I'm devouring it. I've only gone through maybe a quarter of it so far, but there's powerful stuff there - things to make you think about yourself, about life, about other people, about invisibility. Good stuff. A really good Carnival. An amazing first Carnival issue.

Go read.



[And if you're someone thinking bs about how 'omg it's livejournal' - stop reading my blog. Livejournal is a tool to be used and we're all damn lucky it's been around to give voice to so many who might otherwise be invisible. This anti-livejournal shit is becoming a neon tag for the small minded. Small minds can't handle Anti-racism graduate level, not even to audit.]

Still Alive

Still resting (now I'm battling some kind of cold - ugh). Still focused on my blood pressure and health.

Still getting ridiculous comments in the moderation queue. And said comments are still making me feel the net is filled with crackers and honkeys dressed up in nice suits, trying to pretend they're east coast debutantes and ivy league legacies they've actually thought about the meaningful things in life that don't involve licking the insides of their mouths and staring at their own navels.

Of course if the purpose of these comments is to make me think white menfolk can't jumplearn - then mission accomplished.

Also, apparently only Deepa D is authentically brown.

O.o

In other news, while I'm not looking up indie comics I'm attempting to wrap my head around D&D 4th Edition.

I find the Shadar Kai ridiculous, in case you wondered. They're so very...white. Of course someone will tell me it's not just white folk who've created a culture of Urban Tribalism, appropriating the markings (tattoos) of non white peoples, including piercings and hair styles. Personally I'm imagining the Shadar Kai at their own Burning Man celebration. Or would that be Burning Raven?

And oh yeah! Dear outraged white people - yes, I am imagining a world where y'all don't exist - aside from being a group of humans who don't live past 23, who indulge in extreme activities and who live worshiping a 'Dark Queen'.

It amuses me.

Despite being amused and occasionally intrigued by the shared world/ tweak your own concept, however, I still want to shoot stats in the face. And I will likely never play with people who need to roll die every five minutes (and or slash something to bloody bits). Stats look like chains of numbers meant to shackle a bunch of possible players who've no idea how to control themselves.

But other aspects of my geeky self glory - Medusas and Mariliths, and the Astral and Elemental Chaos Planes -- pretty pretty storytelling elements. Oooh.

Cause I'm Really Not Joking

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

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My Fav LoLCat Image of all Time.

PS: The Kitteh is Ecru.

Springfield Elementary Needs Substitutes. But Not Me.

Willow spend the day in the ER today. Her blood pressure was ridiculous and luck and more were the only things that caught it and sent her somewhere for monitoring. As said by the doctors - "Someone that young shouldn't have BP that high."

That said - Willow, (meaning me), is not going to risk her health over the failings and attempted learnings of white people.

In general I've been pretty good at that. Though sometimes, the sheer "WTBlueBlazes Was That Flying Ecru Cow Pattie!" has knocked the common sense right out of me. But this has become about some pretty, structurally important spoons in my life and those spoons are priceless when compared to 'White Learnings & Other Babblecock'.

When I hear about published writers in the White Tower of SF&F, talking about sending monetary support, or even taking the time to send snail mail in order to Save The World With Postage or things similar? - I'll reconsider reading the povs of white people I don't already know.

If I hear ambush, I'll blow the horn. And if I learn the Horde needs backup - I'll be there. But clearly even spot reading all the "Wow isn't it so wonderful to be having this conversation - it's so new" is disrupting my brain's chemical balance. I am probably not the only one. I'm sure there are First Nations and Indigenous Peoples who often go "Discovered what 'new' land, you willfully blind, appropriating, genociding, greedy, selfish` honkies."

...

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I've thought about it for a bit and I've decided I might feel differently on Monday. Maybe. Depending on how my BP fares through the weekend. For right now? The next post on here might have to do with kittens, or webcomics, or kitten webcomics to give myself somewhere else to turn my eyes.

Black kittens in a webcomic by an Asian Artist and with an NDN colourist and a Latin@ letterist - who also helps them translate the comic into Portuguese. The web is big. It's probably out there.

Revolution of the Pocketbook

I don't buy Kraft products. Kraft is owned by Phillip Morris and court win or not, I just feel icky when I think my buying mac & cheese puts even a single red cent into the hands of a cigarette company; however far up in the ownership list it is.

I forgot JC Penny existed, because I stopped buying from them over Dr. Laura and the Ellen show. I got used to living my life without JC Penny.

I avoid Walmart if at all possible, and luckily for me, it's very possible.

I don't watch a lot of tv anymore because I'm sick and tired of the black faces being majority mindless comedy and white faces in just about everything else. I wait for friends to recommend tv series for me and watch them via Netflix.

I also don't eat foods with MSG in them, no matter how much they remind me of my childhood - because I just don't want to do that to my body. I might not be able to eat as healthily and with as many fresh ingredients that I'd like - but avoiding msg is something easy I can do for my health.

And I've recently made a commitment to by a brand of toilet paper I already like - because I've discovered that most TP in the US apparently comes from virgin trees. That's waste I don't feel comfortable supporting, just for my ass.

I call all this, living my life by my principles. Are there times when I make compromises against my principles? Yes. But I determine those moments and those compromises are a conscious choice for whatever reason - from buying water in a bottle, if I absolutely can't find a bottle of apple juice or something else healthy somewhere to deciding I can't afford birch sugar, so I'll buy beet or cane.

There's a list that a friend of mine put up, that I contributed links to, concerning the various authors behaving badly (not linked on purpose). And that list has been pointed out and called a lot of things. The list-maker has been called a lot of things; some extremely offensive.

And I am both amazed, angry and well, quite frankly, laughing.

When one person says to an author behaving badly. "I will never buy your work again." Most authors apparently go 'And there goes my one expensive dinner out for the year' - quite snarkily, and go about their lives. But if that one person puts up a list to keep track, for her and her friends - all of a sudden that's labeled an enemies list or 'calling for a boycott'.

I said I wanted to shun certain authors, to me shunning would include not buying or borrowing from the library, any of their work.

I have given up Peter David and Emma Bull. I have given up Charles Stross, regardless of how much I've enjoyed his Merchant Princes series. I've sighed and firmed my resolve against anything by Robin Mckinley. I've discovered that seeing the word TOR makes me roll my eyes so hard they hurt. William Sanders and anything related to him got on my shit list last year.

Is there a difference somehow to my putting these names in a paragraph vs having them in a bullet point list?

Is there a difference to having a list in my head of authors I won't try or having their names spread out in several posts in a blog with a search box?

I'm already avoiding Urban Fantasy with white protagonists - so I've already been avoiding Anton Strout. Jim Butcher got in under the wire before my disgust and dismay at an entire genre set in and I keep hoping he never says a word, cause a 50/50 chance of him saying the wrong thing is too much. But if I hear something unappealing about him - you can bet that I will clench my teeth, sigh, and erase him from my 'Books to collect' list.

Readers choose to pursue or not pursue certain authors or series based on their own personal taste. That taste can include whether or not they think the authors are asshats. The whole world is not like comics fandom, where as much complaining as happens, many people just still keep buying because of a need for a complete collection.

It's called free will, whether one believes that will to be a privilege of G-d or constitution. And another aspect of such choice is called a free market.

So what's the big to do?

Is it because it's PoC/NWP who're making a list and the authors on that list are white? Is this just another twist on the concept of reverse racism? Cause it seems that way.

Anton Strout (or someone using/sharing his IP addy) calling an Asian Hawaiian woman 'you little macadamia nut' sure as hell makes it seem that way (again not linked on puropse - but IP logging = win).

When Scalzi made his first entry about Racefail 09 - The pdf I had from Tor's free offerings got deleted off my computer. Immediately. And I put the rest of the authors excluding Buckell and Misty Lackey in a holding folder for further deletion consideration.

Authors behaving badly aren't worth anyone's spoons. But I know they're definitely not worth mine. They're not worth my free time. They're not worth my money. They're not worth me recommending them to my local librarians as potential purchases.

So I say, a little like the crowd at the National Mall on January 20th of this year:

"Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye"

What I Wish

There's been more racist and failing casting in Avatar: The White Washing. Karen Healey has mocking commentary on it. No doubt Aang Ain't White has or will have news as well.

But commentary doesn't help and isn't listened to and protests haven't worked and sending snail mail has resulted in mail being sent back. And M. Night Shaylaman seems to have sold his soul and his daughter's racial pride in order to have Hollywood pretend to respect him (You're BROWN Night. Pretense is all it is).

What I Wish we could do, is organize a viewing of the original series all over the nation, on the movie's opening day. I know this is just a dream, I have no idea how such a thing would be organized and I have no way of knowing if my tentative idea of 'via one's local public library' would even work, because not everyone's library system is the same.

But, I wish we could still have an alternate place for fans to go;somewhere free, with food, possibly food from the series - definitely tea. I wish that fans gathered in each other's homes, or at the library, or by someone's plain back wall, where another someone has set up a projector and we all watched the real Avatar and not this sham of 'WHITE HEROES SAVE WHITELANDIA FROM EVIL BROWN HORDES'. With some 'ethnics' in the background, with their Korean Kimonoes (Fail!Trademark, Deedee Rickets, Casting)

But the truth is, I know that's not going to happen. I know that if the Movie Execs, really believed that what they were doing would cause them financial harm - they'd stop doing it. They might not see black, white, red or yellow, but they sure as hell see green.

And green is hundreds to thousands of white tweens and teens and adults going to a movie to see white heroes in Asian Dressing, saving the world from evil brown folks. AGAIN. Just like always in fact. Because white is brighter and better and the default and why even go into it all over again. Avatar is Non White Fantasy as in Non White Futurism & Fantasy. And the movie industry is making it SF&F - > WHITE DREAMS O POWER. And we've seen just how loudly WHITE DREAMS O POWER will shout and scream and fart to drown out any other perspectives.

We've seen how pointing out the racism can threaten people's livelihoods.

We've seen and heard how 'multicultural fantasy' just doesn't sell. Or how 'If white fantasy sells, then the industry will make white fantasy because the industry wants to make money'.

WE HAVE SEEN THIS BULLSHIT

And I'm so effling tired of it. So effing tired.

I am tired and it's not even four months into the year yet. I am tired of white people apparently thinking post colonial means 'Post America's War For Independence'. I am tired of willful ignorance. I am tired of white liberals who don't want to admit they bathe and wank off to white privilege, to a world catered to them, and that fighting for social justice to them, is an entertaining hobby; something they do when they have time, energy, full health, not so many other articles to read online, blah blah blah.

I am tired of people who don't get why this is painful and important. I am tired of people claiming not to understand why it's wrong to have a story created about NWP/POC, specifically ASIAN PEOPLES, being co-opted by white actors into a white morality play on the evils of being BROWN, but maybe you'll rise above your DARKNESS if the right white people reach out to you.... I'm tired of THAT BULLSHIT OLD STORY.

I guess when it comes to movies, however, I have some years left to wait for other people to be just as tired and just as angry and just as willing to walk away from an industry that does not respect those who are not white.

Cause I don't think I'm going to get my wish that enough people simply will not go to see this film, and it will flop hugely, putting a nail in the coffin of M.Night's career and any other adaptation into whiteness of POC/NWP's stories.

And not because there are PoC/NWP who'll support it. But because there are just too many white people, willingly blind to what's going on, who won't see anything wrong with all the PoC being on the side of the narrative's aggressors.

Still, it's a nice wish - True Fans Holding A Series Marathon, in rejection of the pale, withered, overused thing that will slither out of the movie studio.

ETA:PS - if anyone wants to comment and tell me in essence, how I'm becoming Malcolm X, but going backwards from Mecca to Blue Eyed Devils? Yes, I already know.

ETA2: (March 25th) My ETA above is about my inability to see allies anymore unless I see their blood spilled and mingling with mine. It's come to my attention that some people feel Malcolm X post Mecca was some kind of fluffy bunny. Educate yourself - buy the book and read it.

I Am A Story Teller

I have been adding links to my sidebar. I point out this one in particular because it echoes what was between the lines of my Open Letter; the post that started it all. It further defines what I assumed writers willing to talk about 'Writing The Other' would already know.

I threw a book across a room, because:

1. A being associated with the word Caribbean; ate humans, and was enslaved. And I thought, "Your WTF Spaceship Is Waiting E.Bear" because in that tale, I and those like me were being given an old, tired blueprint/map in our escape to fantasy.

2. The being who assists others in their quest, but whose story is traditionally one of being arbitrarily listened to, and of being tricked and betrayed - now had dark skin. This new map said; you can be powerful, but only in relation to the story of another person's quest. And only in this story all about their culture.

And of what I read, that being didn't want their life disrupted. But it had to be, or the paler characters would never fulfill their dreams. And it didn't matter that the unwilling adventurer is its own trope. What mattered to me was being told, via that story "But you're an important part of THIS story, with celtic faeries and white dreams, why aren't you grateful? Why aren't you excited? What's so important in your little life, making your music, when you could be part of this grand white tale."

And it's not like I don't enjoy Arthurian Legend *points up to blog title* It's not like I can't comprehend or recognize Quests to save the Land, the King and all the People; quests of Freedom; quests of Self Determination.

Especially considering I seem to be on such a quest.

It's seeing the familiar, worn and dreaded path. It's seeing a character with skin like mine and possibly hair like mine, not being given an option to say no. The lack of autonomy is an over used and tattered map/life lesson. Watching a black woman essentially be told - if this white man wants you, then he will get you. End. Done. It was having to throw away the visual image of someone who had history and a life of their own, up on a virtual slaver's block, with two pale characters bidding for them, in whatever form that bidding would take. [Seduction can be currency when the auctioneer is inside one's (the character's) head.]

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* Asian Woman Blog Carnival: Deadline - DEADLINE: April 3rd 2009.

* PoC in SF/F Carnival Special Edition: De-Colonizing The Mind (Intra-PoC Dialogue) - DEADLINE: March 27, 2009

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It Is Time To Tell Our Stories.

It Is Time To Go Somewhere That Wants To Publish/Spread Our Stories.

It Has Been A Mistake To Believe Anything Else Would Work.