People of color have to learn white culture for survival. White people learn brown and black culture for ‘ghetto’ jokes.
Sara David (via fatwasandfanboys)
yes i said this first thing in the morning. working on a longer post about it. yeeeeeeesh.
(via wordsandturds)
(via velocicrafter)
Source: fatwasandfanboys
White People Who Fuss About Border Security
Just the other day, I ran across one of the guys from the high school group at my old church, and he was complaining about how unfair that the church can’t do casual mission trips across the border into Mexico like they used to because the Border Patrol won’t let Americans back into the country with just a driver’s license anymore.
Oh, shut the fuck up. Being waved through the border checkpoints with a cursory glance at your driver’s license was only ever a thing for white Americans. People of color always had to have full ID papers, and if you so much as looked kinda-sorta Hispanic you weren’t safe unless you had a passport and visa. His parents never noticed that when they were grousing about the “good old days” before 9/11, of course.
And it occurs to me that white privilege is so ingrained in the mindset of the middle class suburban white that they cannot comprehend being treated unkindly by the police on a systemic basis. Literally cannot comprehend it, even when it happens right in front of them. It’s always, “Geez, that cop was a total asshole to you.” No, he wasn’t. They’re all like that to people like me, and a hell of a lot worse to brown and black Americans.
Source: freedominwickedness
For my white folks: notes on being an ally to People of Color.
These are some things that I have discovered or have been informed of over the last few months on this blog, and I wanted to pass them on in one place. I hope they can help you in the ways they’ve helped me, and I thank the people who’ve patiently helped me to understand them.
1. ‘Ally’ is something that you do, not something that you are.
I don’t call myself an ally. I appreciate it when I am referred to as such by my friends/followers who are People of Color, but a label such as ally isn’t something that a person can apply to themselves. It’s a liquid term that may or may not apply to me at any time depending on my personal behavior, and to assume the term is to assume that I am then incapable of wrongdoing or racism. I’m not. I’m simply not. You cannot label yourself an ally, all you can and should do is be one.
2. We’re still white, folks.
Far, far too often I see white anti-racists referring to all other white people as ‘you’, ‘they’, ‘them’, etc. We’re still white, y’all. We still have white privilege. When we tell white people to stop doing things, we have to say we have to stop doing this, we have problems, we have privilege, we don’t experience racism, we will never understand, we, us, ours. Rejecting whiteness and white supremacy does not strip us of privilege or somehow remove from us our ability to white.
3. We must work in the interests of all People of Color, while understanding that PoC are human beings who do not always agree with each other.
Simply put, it’s not our place to step into conversations between People of Color who are discussing racism to agree or disagree. Remember, we don’t experience racism. We can’t pick between the viewpoints of people who, from birth, understand racism from experience. As white people, and as anti-racists, we deal in our own. There are plenty of white people upholding white supremacy, we have plenty to do. And, in the rare case that this happens, if a Person of Color tells you that racism happens to white people, etc, thank them for their opinion and move on. We simply have no place to argue.
4. We support, defend, and battle. We don’t validate.
When we reblog something about experiences with racism/whiteness from a Person of Color, we don’t do so in order to ‘endorse’ or ‘validate’ their experiences, or to say that ‘as a white person, I agree that this happened to you and I say it’s awful and therefore it really is’. We must understand that these experiences are valid by the fact of their existence alone. We pass these things on because they’re real, and because people need to know. Not because we need to put our white stamp of approval on it.
5. Intersectionality.
In other words, to work in the best interests of People of Color we must also work in the interests of queer people, trans people, women, disabled folks, etc, but we must remember that these battles often share the same front. There are queer PoC, trans PoC, Women of Color, disabled PoC. Homophobia, cissexism, misogyny, and ableism work against People of Color as much as they do anybody else.
6. It’s not about us.
It’s just not. When whiteness is rightfully attacked, we have the choice to continue to battle whiteness or personally defend ourselves. We can only do one at a time, and there’s only one that we can do while calling ourselves anti-racists.
Who gives a fuck if we’re not all like that? There are still an overwhelming majority of white people who are. See point 2. We’re not here to defend ourselves or present ourselves as good people or ‘better than the other white people’. See point 1. We don’t determine the legitimacy of our ally status, and to derail a conversation on racism by defending ourselves is to say that the fact that I don’t see myself this way is more important than the fact that whiteness prevails, which is whiteness prevailing in action, and is racist.
Source: stfuconfederates
Dear whiny ass white people,
Trayvon Martin’s murder IS NOT ABOUT YOU! Stop trying to make it about you and your tiny ass feelings. A lot of PoC on tumblr are going through a really hard time right now because it’s been made blatantly obvious that people simply don’t give a shit about the murder of us and our children.
George Zimmerman stalked, confronted, and KILLED a Black child and was allowed to walk free. That Black child could have been any one of us or our children. Even though a lot of us did not know Trayvon or his family personally, we’re hurting right now. We’re hurting because we know how they feel. We’re hurting because this is, for some of us, our worst fear. We’re hurting because no one outside of our community cares.
For you to come to us and derail the conversation, cry about how “you’re all not like that”, complain that you haven’t been given a cookie or pat on the back for “not being racist”, and then expect us to be nice IS SOME STRAIGHT BULLSHIT! For you to, after triggering the hell out of some of us, get mad when we reply with anger and then call us racist IS SOME STRAIGHT BULLSHIT. For you to not give a fuck about our feelings and then demand that we care about yours IS SOME STRAIGHT BULLSHIT! We don’t want to hear shit from you or about you. Fuck you.
Sincerely,
A Black woman who is sick of your shit.PS:
(via stfuconfederates)
Source: ladyatheist
What it means, to identify with a criminal.
Dharun Ravi was sentenced to jail today.
He’s going to jail because he turned down a plea bargain, a deal that would have, a) kept him out of jail, b) kept the felony off his record, c) kept him in the country, because he’ll almost certainly be deported to India when his time is up (he’s lived here since he was young, but he’s an Indian national).
He took his chances in court because he didn’t want to even admit that he did what he did because Tyler Clementi was gay. He thought it was so ludicrous that he was being charged with a hate crime, that he decided to go ahead and ruin his life so that he could stand on a bullshit principle. That’s how little respect he has for Tyler’s family, that’s how little respect he has for his dead roommate, that’s how little he cares about what he did. This is a man who is utterly unwilling to take responsibility for his own actions, who has no sense of honor and no sense of accountability.
I felt sorry for him today, reading about him in the news, seeing his picture everywhere.
Why? Because I feel a kinship to him, because we come from the same kind of family, because we’re both the same ethnicity, because we look alike, and because we (probably) have experienced many of the same things, as we’re both people of Indian descent, living in America. Its an experience that not many people share, and I feel a natural affinity to those who know what its like.
And those are feelings that I’ve been trying to bury, to swallow down, to fight all day. Because they’re irrelevant; because its pure nepotism. An eighteen year old boy, a young man, is dead because of something Ravi did, and Ravi needs to be punished for it.
I’m ashamed of feeling the way I do about Dharun Ravi.
I think white people feel this way about the white criminals and murderers they see, getting sentenced, getting put away — except they don’t try to fight it. Because there’s a pattern here; whenever a white person has acted badly, they immediately are treated to a chorus of sympathy from white onlookers.
Remember that high school teacher in New Mexico who told her student to “go back to Mexico”? The one who claimed she was just having a bad day and that she’s not actually racist? If you’re white, you identify with her. You can’t help but not! You know people like her! You have them in your own family! You grew up around people like that! Maybe you are a person like her; maybe you think the same way. But even if you don’t, even if you’re an active anti-racist — if you’re white, you understand her, just a little.
George Zimmerman, the child murderer who stalked and shot to death a seventeen year-old black boy, is already trying to sway the court of public opinion (because that’s the only court he’s facing) by playing on white sympathies. Zimmerman is actually the victim of a media firestorm, Zimmerman was only doing what he thought was right to protect his community, Zimmerman is the victim of a campaign of hatred. Its going to work, on a certain segment of the white population. Because there’s a reason why George Zimmerman exists, there’s a reason why Trayvon Martin is dead. Because we live in a society where white people feel that they can identify more with a white vigilante trying to “wipe out crime” than they can with a black boy who has gone to the corner store to buy his brother some skittles.
I want you to fight that affinity you feel, white people. Fight that identification you feel for people who have been accused of racism, for people who are guilty of heinous crimes. Feel some vindictive rage, feel it as hard on behalf of victims who don’t look like you, who don’t remind you of you, as you do for those victims who could be related to you. Be ruthless, for once. Be angry. Recognize how fucked up it is when you automatically see the nuance, the mitigating factors in one case, but you see a cold-blooded monster in another.
I got a taste of what it means to see someone who reminds me of me at a sentencing hearing today.
I didn’t like it, I didn’t like what it said about me.
You shouldn’t like what it says about you, either — if you can see the humanity in someone like Zimmerman.
Source: anedumacation
Also just wanna add that likes and preferences do not occur in a vacuum. If most of your favorites authors or actors or artists are white and you are white too (or even if you are not white) that’s not an accident. First off white people and white stories and white experiences are centered and celebrated in every aspect of our society. Whites have the institutional privilege and access to dominate mainstream visible artistic institutions. White talent is everywhere. And white people have the privilege to not have to expose themselves to the experiences skills talents and stories of POC. It won’t matter if a white person appreciates PoC talent - whites can still earn degrees or be seen as having cultured taste and opinion without ever diverging from reading white stories. We can afford to not care about POC. The opposite is not true. That’s white supremecy and white privilege at work.
Source: canering
THIS WEEK IN WHITENESS: Living While Black (11-03-12)
11 March, 2012:
This week’s post only highlights a few of the major blows dealt to POC, specifically Black people, at the hands of white people unaware (or not so unaware) of their own racist tendencies. Although, as the subject of the middle topic suggests, the outcome is lethal.
Being Spoken For While Black: On Monday (5 March), non-profit organization Invisible Children debuted their new film “Kony 2012,” a film about the Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony. The film, which lasts about 30 minutes, decries Kony (pronounced Kohn) for his abduction of children in Uganda, turning them into tools of destruction and terror. “The arc of the video tells you that before, no one cared,” wrote Michael Wilkerson of The Guardian.
“But, thanks to technology and Invisible Children, everyone can now take the necessary action to earn Kony the infamy and arrest or death he deserves. But since Invisible Children as an organisation began with a few north Americans stumbling into a conflict they didn’t know existed and then resolving to help the child victims by making a movie, the base level of great white saviourdom is already high. Implying that finally now, by getting the word out about Kony via celebrities, bracelets and social media, can the LRA be ended plays into this narrative of white rescuers coming to help poor Africans and totally ignores the efforts, good and bad, by Ugandans to fight the LRA for 25 years.”
Except one of the major problems with KONY 2012 is that it raises awareness without context, giving its newfound followers only one command: Stop at nothing. Apparently, this command has a correllary: “Stop at nothing, even if Ugandans have told you to stop.” People from Tumblr’s own Amber Ha to the director of the World Peace Foundation to Anonymous have criticized Invisible Children, often citing it’s propaganda-like qualities and complete dismissal of African voices. Africans across the continent, especially in Uganda, have spoken out against Jason Russell and his organization’s film.
This case of drowning out Black voices is worse than The Help: should Kony 2012 enter US politics, the potential consequences - such as further US military intervention - will be dire for Ugandans. But this is lost on many of Invisible Children’s followers, who often citing supposed African helplessness and the US’s right to intervene.
“The white savior supports brutal policies in the morning, founds charities in the afternoon, and receives awards in the evening,” tweeted Nigerian-American author Teju Cole. There’s truth in those words: “They [Hollywood producers] are getting in touch with the Academy Awards. They want this to be up for an Oscar.”
Walking While Black: Although the event didn’t happen this week, 17-year-old Treyvon Martin’s untimely death at the hands of a white racist vigilante Neighborhood Watchman is making the news as more details are released. Website Sandra Rose reports:
On his way back from the store, carrying only a bag of Skittles and a can of Arizona ice tea, Trayvon was spotted by 26-year-old George Zimmerman. Zimmerman was the self-appointed Neighborhood Watch “captain” of the gated community called The Retreat at Twin Lakes in Sanford, 20 miles north of Orlando…A police report indicates that Zimmerman called 911 to report a “suspicious person” in the area. The police dispatcher reportedly told Zimmerman to “stand down” and wait for backup to arrive shortly.
But Zimmerman, who is white, ignored that order and exited his vehicle to confront Trayvon, who is black.
A fistfight ensued and Trayvon apparently got the best of Zimmerman. Police found him standing over Trayvon, who was dead from a single gunshot wound to the chest.”Zimmerman has never been arrested; it’s worth pointing out that had Martin been holding the gun and Zimmerman was the one shot, Treyvon Martin would be sitting in a cell. The police cited Zimmerman’s “squeaky clean” record as part of why he has yet to be arrested and charged with murder.
Martin’s family’s lawyer asserts that race played a huge factor in Martin’s death, as it was “the 600 pound elephant in the room. Why is this kid suspicious in the first place? I think a stereotype must have been placed on the kid.” Zimmerman could very well plead self-defense, a plea that would unfairly shorten his prison time - if, indeed, he receives any.
Change.org has generated a petition demanding justice for Treyvon Martin, which can be signed here.
Arguing While Black: Today is the last day of “KBURD Week,” in which POC members of the Tumblrverse - especially Black tumblers - implemented an effective stonewall against the hateful, racist commenters flooding their askboxes. Tumblers such as thegoddamazon, thenegroxperiment, dumbthingswhitepeoplesay (who was actually threatened by Tumblr staff with suspension) have been under greater attack than normal for Black bloggers who dare to talk about race and white privilege. In reaction to Tumblr staff repeatedly ignoring harassment of POC on Tumblr while acting without discrimination whenever white bloggers cry wolf, the blog POC Harassment was created to archive the death threats, racial slurs and other terrible things that white people - some of whom claim to be Feminists and allies to POC - have hurled at them. It’s worth noting that the Tumblr staff is over 90% white.
If they continue to ignore the cases being built (and they shouldn’t have to be) by POC bloggers on Tumblr, the Tumblr staff and their replies to POC will be a regular feature of This Week in Whiteness. Racism and white privilege are never too hard to look for - and for many POC on Tumblr, it’s often right in their inbox.
Want to see a certain topic discussed? As you go through this coming week, feel free to send in any topics you want highlighted on This Week in Whiteness! Drop submissions here before 11:50pm EST Tuesday night (for the Mid-Week Highlight) and 11:50pm EST Saturday (for the Sunday post). If you want to become a regular writer for This Week in Whiteness, drop a message here.
Stay Vigilant,
This Week in Whiteness
(via deliciouskaek)
Source: thisweekinwhiteness
OH MY GOD!!! No shit? We’re all HUMAN??? Wow, I actually thought I’m like, an elephant or an alien. Thanks a lot, Captain Obvious.
(sorry, I couldn’t resist, I just saw this hilarious picture on Facebook…. and cue the major eye roll. we all know a heterosexual, able-bodied, white person made this dumb picture… aww, white privilege is so adorable.)
lmao
you must be white
Source: deafmuslimpunx
Black people can’t talk to white people about race anymore. There’s really nothing left to say. There are libraries full of books, interviews, essays, lectures, and symposia. If people want to learn about their own country and its history, it is not incumbent on black people to talk to them about it. It is not our responsibility to educate them about it. Plus whenever white people want to talk about race, they never want to talk about themselves. There needs to be discussion among people who think of themselves as white. They need to unpack that language, that history, that social position and see what it really offers them, and what it takes away from them.
Steve Locke - “Why I Don’t Want to Talk About Race” (via kararikue)
this fucking essay, its perfection.
(via super-eklectic1)
Source: kararikue
There is little to no difference between Nazism and white supremacy as we know it today. Nazism was a version of white supremacy. No wonder it is so fiercely condemned in today’s white hegemonic world, I guess it is a psychological way to distance oneself from the horrors of white supremacy while still taking part in them. The reason no one would say “Doesn’t shout about teh evul Nazi man in Germany” and be taken seriosuly is quite simple actually: Jews are now part of whiteness. I have read about Hannah Arendt and all these philosophers wondering why and how such evilness happened in Germany. Well it happened how it has been happening for ages and is still happening to this day: Those excluded from whiteness are mere things, well they are nothing actually.
