Posts tagged white privilege

ladyatheist:

thelittlekneesofbees:

[Tw: Racial slur]

*note before I start*These are only a few things I thought of today which could answer your question seeing as this question is dissertation (broad but very heavy) worthy to begin with. Also, I’ve been on vacation and just got off the plane so this is 7 hours late and not proofread because most of this was started on my phone. I’m also probably going to get a lot of hate after I publish this saying how all of this is fairytale and unrealistic but you asked so you get an answer*end note*

First white people would look at what they’ve done to society and stop seeing just greatness.

They’d see the Diasporas they’ve caused and instead of complaining when white guilt sets in. Actively do things to change it. Get the fuck out of African Nations(give them back their free water supply, stop invading for oil, trees, metals, and gems). They would see the pain and the illness in this world and not pass over it in the name of Manifest Destiny, economy, profit gains, or means to an end. They would throw away Manifest Destiny from this day forth. They would apologies to Natives, and treat them with respect, they would lower the prizes of food on the rez, get them proper shelter, and get them off of all mascot, shirts, pins, backpacks; etc positions because they are people, not tokens. They would dismantle the KKK and other Brotherhoods(Aryan, Italian; etc).  They would redo history books to include original thinkers and creators whose names were overlooked in favor of white apprentices/thieves. They would apologize and compensate the Chinese for the railroads they built. They would look back at the Industrial revolution and see how big of a role race played in getting Lithuanian and other migrant countries to accept lower wages and apologies to them. They would look at what it means to be white and understand whiteness for the step stool made of PoC’s backs, fingers, and heads that it is. Look at projects,”ghettos” and jails and realized the historically the color scheme has gotten darker in those areas for a reason. White people during the IR moved into these places and when white privilege made it easier for them to move up in the word the broken down developments became home to more PoC’s than sometimes humanely possible. Respect Rroma people and understand that they suffer too. Stop calling them ‘gypsies’! They are not a costume they are a people who have long earned the respect white people have refused them. Speak to them about whether they want to be considered white people. Respect their lives. Give what they ask in terms of respect and resources.

And so and and so forth. 

Second, they shouldn’t beg PoC about their opinions and advice about race to alleviate their guilt like we are mammy milkmaids.

They would do what white privilege denies them and that is be accountable for what happen and let* it mark their history because no one else (besides men in general) have gotten a free pass at globally editing history. 

Third, when someone said or done something racist(in “isolated” incidents) there is no consoling the racist. Period.

They are to feel ashamed for what they have said or done because HISTORICAL WEIGHT GIVES NO JUSTIFICATION FOR SUCH THINGS TO CONTINUE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE. POC HAVE SUFFERED ENOUGH FOR A MILLENNIA. Stop thinking other PoC can’t say problematic shit but don’t think that it’s OK to rip them apart for it either. Your boat for that sailed a long time ago. Say your piece and go away. Also, stop treating lighter PoC or straight haired PoC better than others. You are only adding to the disgusting institution your families created and uphold.

Fourth, I need media/Hollywood who ever to realize that PoC can have complicated roles, dark skin, natural hair, and are human beings.

Like Games of Thrones (obviously this story will contain more European/white characters)has 2 African descent person and he’s a pirate with less than 100 words combined if that. I’m tired of all of the stories, movies, books, making me feel like white people are the only people who ever had adventures, were heroes, have conflicts, and doubt their abilities even if they are excellent people. I’m tired of race being a way to real in viewers with controversy instead of because it makes the sense that PoC should be involved in everything white people are involved in. Shows like NBC’s Scandal need more light but I shouldn’t have to be excited because 5+ of the 14+ characters are PoC. The point is we have rich history and stories to be told to. They can be just as good as Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Dexter, BBC Sherlock or Supernatural.

Fifth, white people realizing money is apart of privilege in a very real way.

Let’s see white people refuse their inheritance and give it the DREAM organizations or black youth or other PoC self development organizations. Find the families of your ancestors and pay reparations to children of laborers. Rebuild places like Newark, NJ where race riots are still historically visible in broken down/fire damaged buildings and NOT gentrify them like white people are doing now.  Go to schools where white people aren’t the overwhelming majority in both classrooms and faculty rooms and see how different your education turns out.

Six, Most importantly. PoC are intelligent, efficient, and capable just like white people. Don’t think you need to coddle us forever.

Once we have sufficient tools for ourselves we will not stand for White Saviors; that’s just another way to keep PoC from being their own people and being their own heroes. We don’t need collective parents we need peers.

Don’t just live out change on the internet. Don’t just go to the projects for a class assignment. Actually cut off the white-only bootstraps and live with us. 

So those are 6 or so ways I think racist institutions can be dismantled.

Anon will stay open for a while so stop in if you have anything else to ask. Also, just like when most of my loaded asks come in. I’ll be on Skype too: rjanedoe69 (which is what I use for tumblr only).

Long story short, white people have a lot of work to do.

(Source: bmoburns, via brashblacknonbeliever)

cruelestyouth:

I’m seeing a conversation about this in regards to trans* people, but I’ve seen it in other instances too, and it just really, really grates me.

But sure, white people, it’s a-okay for you to scream at PoC and express your white supremacy and embedded racism then.

I can’t help but to think that’s what you want to hear.

No doubt about it — there are PoC out there who carry around bigoted beliefs. But you really think you’re the only ones in the world who NEEDS to call them out?

Because it’s not like there are no WoC or queer PoC or *gasp* queer WoC.  Unthinkable!  Only white people rule those marginalizations!

Seriously though, a lot of you need to read about intersectionality again and actually understand what it means.  It’s not to be used as an excuse to yell at PoC.  It’s for YOU to be more inclusive and realize that there are people who are more marginalized than you are who are still within your group.

A queer white woman will ALWAYS have privilege over me.  And if a straight MoC starts saying sexist and homophobic crap, guess which one of us it’s going to hurt the most.  And which one of us should have the loudest voice in that situation?

Hint: The white woman needs to STFU, ESPECIALLY if a WoC is already present. 

Call out your own men.

And that’s another thing, too — when a PoC says something problematic, y’all seem to be VERY vocal at calling them out.  Like, VERY.  To the point that I know that if it was a white person saying it, you would probably be more quiet, if not give them a free pass for what they’re saying.

Don’t think your racism isn’t obvious in those situations.  You usually do cash out punishment unequally, whether you realize it or not.

And then you even speak over PoC who are ALSO marginalized the same way you are, when obviously, their voices should be more important than yours when PoC say problematic shit against THEM.

And also, do any of you who act like this call out racism at all? 

It’s like you talk about social justice, but what you really mean is that you’re only in it for yourself and will silence others and throw others under the bus in a heartbeat.  Only YOU and YOUR voice matters.

And you wonder why PoC don’t want to be around you?

It’s probably not because they’re all bigoted against your marginalizations.  It’s probably because ~*reverse racism*~.

(via listenorshutup-deactivated20120)

dead-dog-fred:

Because I still am one. Because it never goes away. Because as a white person, I have absorbed messages for my entire life that I am better than the majority of people on earth, I have absorbed messages telling me that the only lives worth caring about are the ones belonging to those with pale skin. Every day of my life, I absorb more messages that tell me that. Those voices in my head are pretty loud.

There is no “delete” button for that.

What can happen is that the voices of people of color can be louder. If you really listen, if you commit yourself to looking whiteness in the face for what it is, you can hear other voices, voices screaming out their own humanity in the face of white supremacy. They shout pretty loudly.

But the racism is still there. It always will be. It never goes away. You can fight it, but you are never absolved.

As soon as you say: “I’m not racist” you wash your hands of any further responsibility to fight those messages that tell you that white skin makes you better, that anyone without it doesn’t deserve empathy or human dignity. As soon as you say “I’m not racist” you commit yourself fully to racism.

starvedforjustice:

We’re constantly under pressure to not talk about racism, because many people (wrongfully so) are under the impression that somehow acknowledging that racism exists and is bad, somehow makes it worse.

But once we’ve moved past caring what those idiots think, and are ready to talk about race, we face an entirely new set of problems.

We have to deal with white people appropriating our experiences and cultures, but then when we express how that is racist and disrespectful, we ourselves are called racists. We have to deal with people of our own races and ethnicities who’ve internalized racism to such a degree that they themselves refuse to see or talk about it. 

We have to deal with lame excuses for racism, people excusing it, and worst of all, people who claim to be our allies telling us to calm down, that we’re just overreacting. 

Even with all of this, we’re expected to stay calm, and keep speaking in calm voices, regardless of whether or not people are listening to us. We’re expected to be well behaved and nice, while people are spitting in our faces, and calling us liars. We’re supposed to chill out, and calmly explain concepts of racism, privilege, and colorism to people who repeatedly don’t want to hear us, and don’t care how we feel, or what we think. 

Because as soon as we express frustration, or anger at our situations, or the community at large’s refusal to listen to us, then suddenly we’re the bad guys. We’re the violent ones, oppressing the poor white folks with our desires for equality. As soon as we begin demanding things instead of timidly asking for them, suddenly we’re the racist ones. 

(via popular-slut-club-deactivated20)

zorascreation:

Racism is not just about color. I repeat. Racism is not just about color. When we tell these clueless folks on Tumblr that racism is prejudice + power, we should break down that power into easy-to-comprehend nuggets for better retention:

Prejudice: the ideology that Group B is inherently superior to Group A, and having biases about Group A simply for being Group A.

How is this prejudice supported and substantiated?

Colorism: the practice of believing that one is superior to another on the basis of skintone and then creating a hierarchy based on the quality of the person’s color. Many people believe that racism is only discriminating against someone because they are of a different color, but this is just one aspect of it. Colorism and prejudice become everything else down the line.

Ethnocentrism: the ideology that all ethnic cultures outside of your own are of lesser value and importance than your own and that yours is of utmost relevance to the world. This includes every part of a culture, such as language, behavior, religious beliefs, customs, folkways and cuisine.

Vigilantism: the act of Group B carrying out hate crimes against Group A, via social ills such as domestic terrorism, tarring-and-feathering and rape (ex.: Ku Klux Klan)

Racialized Sexism: the belief that the genders of one’s own ethnic group/race are superior to the genders of another group. This can be reinforced by pitting the genders from both racial groups against one another to create a hierarchy of sexual and ethnic privilege, a combined weapon. Within racialized sexism, certain punishments and rewards are put in place to make sure that people of the oppressed group, Group A, can never rise above their place in the hierarchy. Example? It was perfectly acceptable for a White man to rape an Indigenous woman because Indigenous women were not considered human and thus not women.

 Only White women were considered human and worth saving. For men to be the victims, it has to come from a place of repression, not oppression, because men are repressed by the patriarchy rather than oppressed. Example? White folks created the myth that Black men were lascivious half-devil monsters who wished to rape White women, so the consequences of a Black man even daring to so much as look at a White woman would mean instant death. Also, a White woman had the power to immediately cry “rape!” at his expense, even if he: (a) didn’t make an advance and (b) was being molested by her in the first place

Number one, he’s Black so that’s already a strike against him. Number two, he can’t claim “rape” because the patriarchy says that: (a) men can’t be vulnerable and the racism says that (b) Black people are not human and cannot be victims of anything they didn’t deserve. The same story goes for every race/ethnicity of man and woman in the hierarchy.

This kind of thinking also allows people in Group B to believe that they should have willing & ready sexual access to the bodies of Group A at all times, and if Group A denies them this right, it is “reverse racism”. It’s not reverse racism. Group A just don’t like your racist ass and wants you to stop turning their ethnic background into a Halloweeny fetish.

Supremacism: a more concentrated form of prejudice (which is passive), supremacism is an active philosophy that advocates for the legalized defamation of other ethnic groups to be beneath one’s own on the social ladder. Supremacism is often carried out publicly and loudly and is meant to shape the minds of the supposed superior race into believing these teachings through various mediums. Some mediums of where supremacy is used are in familiar ones such as film, television and literature.

Genocide Culture: genocide culture is when you take supremacism to a more violent, consequential level. If Group B deliberately raids, rapes, destroys and exterminates folks in Group A, this is genocide culture. This is ethnic cleansing. Genocide culture becomes genocide denial down the years after full oppression has taken a foothold. Examples of genocide culture are: the Holocaust, the Eugenics Movement, the Trail of Tears.

Institutionalized Discrimination: the act of denying persons of the undesirable group equal access into social facilities, or making it intensely more difficult for persons of Group A to maintain sovereignty in the world because Group B denies them equal treatment. This can happen anywhere, anyplace & anytime, but when discrimination is legalized, such as in Apartheid Laws of South Africa, it is then institutionalized exploitation. Discrimination will undeniably have a negative effect on the class system as well, because climbing the social ladder will be far more difficult on purpose. Even when legalized discrimination is taken down, cultural discrimination still takes place, and is strengthened by biases in the collective cultural consciousness of the more powerful racial group, Group B.

Hate Speech:  Anyone can practice hate speech, but the cultural and social severity of said hate speech is conditional on the ethnicities of the persons in question. Prime examples of hate speech within racist contexts are ethnic slurs such as: nigger, squaw, wetback, slanty-eye, etc. These words come directly from the institutions that have sanctioned  racist acts a normal way of life. Should the people these words are directed at, Group A, then begin to use words against Group B, this is not racism, this is hate speech. The associations between words like “nigger” and “spic” carry more weight than the associations between words like “honky”. Although it isn’t nice to call anyone an ethnic slur, for a privileged person of Group B to deliberately use such words against Group A holds more consequences. Such terms cannot be removed from their oppressive contexts, especially since the racism in the society is still ongoing.

Privilege-Granting or Favoritism: Because all of society is arrayed against Group A, Group B then reaps the benefits of this by being allowed to be the center of everything in the society. People of Group B will be granted special permissions for everyday things like job offerings and representations in the media, because Group B is the standard by which everyone must measure themselves in the society. This thing, called privilege, seeps into EVERY single aspect of the society, even in places where people of Group A & Group B may have some oppression in common, such as being Women or LGBT. And even though they may share this oppression in common, people of Group B will still maintain their power because of their race. As a reaction to this, Group A is forced to either: (a) be eternally subservient to the wishes of Group B or (b) create their own safe spaces and niche groups where their community can be uplifted (HBCUs, Tribal Colleges, PoC organizations, etc.)

Conditionalism: when oppressed groups within the oppressor group (Group B) are discriminated against and dehumanized. Example? The oppression of Anglo-Americans towards the Irish. Conditionalism manifests when oppressed groups within the oppressor group are given a choice: (a) accept the terms of their fate or (b) work towards freeing themselves of their lower status. How do they work towards freeing themselves of their lower status? By oppressing Group A. Example? Irish folks were not considered “white”, but “white negroes” and were seen equally as horrid as Blacks, but Irish folks were able to achieve their Whiteness by performing Blackface at the expense of Black peoples.

Exploitation: part of discrimination, exploitation is the art and science of manipulating the society in order to make things extremely difficult for Group A’s success to flourish. This often manifests itself in places where people in Group A are forced into substandard living conditions because of laws that prohibit them from making the same successes as people in Group B. Even if a person from Group A “makes it”, his or her success will be constantly threatened by circles of power that seek to: (a) discredit him or her, (b) defame him or her. Also, should the successful person in Group A ever seek to help his or her own people out of their abject poverty, this will be seen as a threat to the stability of the order (and it is). The life-line of the success is always conditional on the ability to be consumed by the dominant culture.

ALL OF THESE PRACTICES ARE STILL IN ORDER IN SOME FORM TODAY AND EVERYONE IN GROUP A, ALSO KNOWN AS PEOPLE OF COLOR, ARE STILL SUFFERING FROM THE HISTORICAL AND PRESENT-DAY NEGATIVE BACKLASHES FROM CENTURIES, EVEN MILLENNIA, OF OPPRESSION BY OPPOSING, POWERFUL FORCES. THIS SORT OF OPPRESSION GOES UNNOTICED BY PEOPLE IN GROUP B BECAUSE THEY NEVER HAVE TO THINK ABOUT BEING JUDGED BY A DOMINANT POWER BECAUSE OF THEIR RACE BECAUSE THEY ARE PART OF THE DOMINANT POWER. AND RECEIVE ITS BENEFITS. RACISM IS NOT OVER. IT DID NOT MAGICALLY DISAPPEAR WHEN BARACK OBAMA WAS ELECTED.

IN FACT, IT GOT WORSE. MUCH, MUCH WORSE. DON’T BELIEVE ME? ASK PEOPLE OF COLOR ABOUT OUR EXPERIENCES. LOOK UP STATISTICAL ANALYSIS FROM THE AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION AND AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL. KNOW YOUR PRIVILEGE. TAKE OWNERSHIP OF YOUR PRIVILEGE. DECOLONIZE YOUR MIND. FREE YOURSELF FROM THIS BULLSHIT. AND THAT’S ALL I HAVE TO SAY.

*sips tea*