[UA] Urban Witchcraft (another long post)

[Tim Toner]

This is very nice indeed.

You know, I think there's a school of magick out there waiting to be created
about the untapped potential of the 'urban youth'.  Frex, no one really
cares what they actually think, they have no money, per se, but most of
Hollywood panders to that demo.  Why?  Well, it's pretty obvious.  They want
to actually reach the affluent suburban white youth, who reject all direct
overtures, and clamor for anything that seems 'authentic'.  I've always
loved how Black Youth Culture embraces aspects of Asian culture like crazy,
and White Youth Culture falls all over itself two days too late to ever fit
in.

I actually had a notion that addressed this for Mage, but it never got off
the ground.  Basically, there's a Tradition mage (Order of Hermes type) who
has to *gasp* go to the mall for something.  Oh, the ignomity!  He expects
to be nabbed by the Syndicate any second, and, well, nothing happens, and
that annoys him even more.   He's about to pack it in, when out of the
corner of his eye, he sees a black kid boosting something from one of the
ubiquitous kiosks.  Except he doesn't seem like he's trying to hide what
he's doing.  He's just doing it.  Then the Mage realizes that not only does
no one else see the kid, the kid has an awakened avatar to boot!  The kid
sees that the mage sees him, and takes off running, but given that he's
never gone toe to toe with a real mage before, he gets caught.  The
hermeticist is trying to figure out what this is all about, when he realizes
that the kid, and many of his age group live in an interesting blind spot in
reality.  By dint of who they are -- young, male, black -- they're born
suspect.  They could wear expensive clothes, and people would mutter, "Drug
dealer."  They could wear 'good' clothes, and people would wonder when their
court hearing starts.  Since people are willing to believe they're capable
of ANYTHING, then that's what they can do.  Anything.  And the blindness
that infects our minds when we cease seeing them as individuals becomes a
physical manifestation.  Regardless of what the kids do, the witnesses see
the same damn thing -- medium height, medium build, teenager, etc.  The
catch is that they cannot operate in areas where they might be seen as an
individual, so they must work in mostly white areas, and their actions
usually perpetuate the stereotype.  It's a self-reinforcing paradox.  Of
course, most of them use their gifts for non-larcenous endeavors, but
ironically, that's the only way they can charge up (in Mage, it was gather
Quint through their damaged avatar, but the UA charge system works even
better).





If you believe that your thoughts originate inside your brain -- do you also
believe that television shows are made inside your television set? - Warren
Ellis