ephemera

typingfrantically:

madamescherzo:

racismschool:

Ever been described as “Aggressive” when you feel like you’ve been going out of your way to keep your cool? Yes, it’s another tool of the racist.

This one took me years to figure out.

When I moved to the all white school, people (some that I didn’t even know) would walk up…

White people should apologize for being the only racists in the world, and then we should collectively kill ourselves, because, clearly, we have not done anything in the world that is worth remembering, and the world would be much better, more just, more fair, more loving without white people. White people! Listen up! You have a duty to kill yourselves.

Gee, if only there was some kind of solution to the horrors of white infestations on the planet.

Watch your privilege. Even if you have never done anything racist - which I highly doubt, given 1) this incredibly offensive post and 2) because you would have to be fucking perfect and nobody’s that good - you are still benefiting from white privilege simply because you are white. Step up and fucking recognize it, and then do what you can to make things right.

It’s comments like these that are exactly what the OP was talking about. “Oh em gee, why are you getting so mad at me, I don’t do anything wrong.” Yeah, well, I bet you haven’t done anything right, either.

Your sarcasm is not appreciated. And you know what? It’s fucking racist.

I have an idea. Let’s all swear and be sarcastic at each other instead of doing anything usef—oh wait look I’m doing it too.

But seriously, can we set up some rules for civilised discussion of issues of privilege? Here are some basics to get us started:

1. If you have the privilege under discussion, don’t play the martyr. Just don’t do it. Even if you personally are actively working to end your own privilege (and let’s face it, this is unlikely), there are lots of people who still need to hear the message because unlike you, they haven’t heard it before. Don’t play the martyr and give the racists/sexists/whateverists who read your post one more imaginary reason to continue being bigots.
2. If you have the privilege under discussion, don’t try to counter the statements of those who don’t share your privilege with personal anecdotes. I promise that the people who don’t share your privilege deal on a daily basis with people who do share your privilege but who nevertheless aren’t you. You are not the only white/male/cis/straight/wealthy/whatever person in the world, and even if you personally are somehow 110% blameless, some of the other privileged people are horrible bigots. Acknowledge this fact.
3. Don’t swear at people. It doesn’t help. Really. It just makes them feel antagonism toward you and your words. (Swearing for emphasis in a sentence that isn’t aimed at an individual or group is occasionally fine.)
4. If someone says they are being oppressed, victimised, or otherwise treated as less than human, don’t deny their experience. History is full of people who claimed that “slaves don’t have it all that bad, really,” or that “only a few troublemakers want women to have the vote—most women couldn’t care less”, and so on down the historical road of oppression. Don’t be one of them. Erasing someone else’s lived experience is not an okay thing to do.

And on a personal and immediate note to madamescherzo, don’t argue against things that are obviously true. There is absolutely a racist cultural assertion that black people are aggressive or violent, and unless you’ve never in your life flinched away from someone with darker skin than your own, or someone presenting with one or more stereotypically “black” identifiers (skin, hair, clothing style, dialect, accent, etc.), you are on some level aware of that racist stereotype—and guilty of perpetuating it.

Now the trick is stop.

(via likefrancium)