I find myself constantly trying to get people to understand the differences between racism, discrimination, and prejudice. While racism encapsulates discrimination and prejudice, discrimination doesn’t encapsulate racism and prejudice encapsulates neither. This is a concept that I have trouble putting into words, making it even harder for other people to understand. However, I found that this concept is shared by three simple geometric concepts that should make it easier to understand.
This is a quadrilateral.
Let’s pretend that this quadrilateral is ignorance. Just like the quadrilateral, ignorance is the most basic of its kind. Ignorance breeds bigotry, quadrilaterals form more specific quadrilaterals.
Got it? Good.Moving on.
This is a parallelogram.
This parallelogram is prejudice. Prejudice is unreasonable feelings, opinions, or attitudes towards a group of people. A parallelogram is a type of quadrilateral just like prejudice is a type of ignorance. However, not all quadrilaterals are parallelograms and not all forms of ignorance are prejudice.
This is a rectangle
This rectangle represents discrimination. Discrimination is an action based on prejudice. As in, actively allowing their prejudice to make decisions and the like. Rectangles are forms of parallelograms just like discrimination is based on prejudice. However, a person can choose not to act on their prejudices. It’s incredibly hard, but possible. Therefore, not all prejudice is discrimination just like not all parallelograms are rectangles.
Finally, this is a square.
A square is a rectangle, a parallelogram, and a quadrilateral. Racism is a system comprised of discrimination, prejudice, and ignorance. The requirements of a square call for all sides to be of equal length. The requirements for racism, being a system, call for one group to have more privilege and power than other groups. All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. All squares are parallelograms, but not all parallelograms are squares. All squares are quadrilaterals, but not all quadrilaterals are squares. It is possible to be prejudiced but not racist. It is possible to be discriminatory, but not racist. However, again, racism calls for an entire group to have more power and privilege than other groups. People of color do not have the power to create a system where white people have less power and privilege.
I hope this makes things easier to understand.
Kaxbe: did i really have to reblog this again
21st May 2012
Reblogged From stfuandlistenwhitepeople
Notes: 207
REAL. FUCKING. TALK. (via jawnita)
CC: The article is very interesting as well, give it a read.
“You’ve gradually seen this morphing from schools taking care of their own environments to the police and security personnel, and all of a sudden it just became more and more that we were relying on law enforcement to control everyday behavior,” Austin-based juvenile court judge Jeanne Meurer told The Guardian in an investigative report on the policing of children in America. The British newspaper’s in-depth article was published in January, four months before a Georgia 6-year-old was carted out of her kindergarten classroom in handcuffs after allegedly throwing a caustic tantrum.
Handcuffs, really? “There is no age discrimination on that rule,” a Georgia police chief told local news. The child’s parents have started a petition in an effort to change that.
Over the past year, kids under the age of 13 have been arrested, or threatened with arrest, for giving wedgies, having a food fight and spraying perfume. In more serious circumstances, children are facing real prison time over hockey game fouls and threatening classroom notes. One 6-year-old was accused of sexual assault by school officials during a recess game of tag. In order to have the sexual battery charge wiped from his school record, the child’s parents had to hire a lawyer to prove that the charges had no legal basis. "
Kindergartner Charged with Battery. Why Are We Criminalizing Kids? - Yahoo
How do you write a story about this with no mention of race?
That 6 year old girl arrested for a tantrum in Georgia? Black. The 12 year old girl arrested for drawing on her desk? Latina.
It’s also a fact that Black And Latino kids are more likely to be disciplined, are disproportionately diagnosed with learning disabilities, more likely to be suspended, are the most vulnerable victims of the school to prison pipeline & are the most likely to attend underfunded schools.
So I mean, really, Yahoo? Really?
(via notime4yourshit)
CC: Look at how racist and inaccurate this photo it. Just look. It’s absolutely mesmerizing, how completely disgusting it is.
Now let’s get to work.
1. The little Black girl on the left would most likely choose a white doll. This study was actually carried out already and proved the self-hatred and sense of inferiority young Black children internalize because of the barrage of supremacist images/messages given to them on a regular basis. We live in a culture where “white” is the standard of beauty, the norm, the ultimately acceptable. “Black” is presented as the racial opposite of white and is therefore the opposite of everything white is: the opposite of “beauty”, “intelligence”, “success”, “health”, “goodness”, “purity”, etc. The likelihood that a Black child, already exposed to so much subliminal anti-Blackness, would choose a Black doll is unfortunately small.
2. I can see that this cartoon is meant to be a metaphor for “white pride” and “Black pride”. It was disgustingly carried out and the artist should be extremely ashamed. White and Black are NOT equivalent to one another. They are not on the same platform and are not easily interchanged in the manner displayed here. There is a systematic oppression continuously being perpetrated against Black people by white people. “White pride” is not something that should be expressed or celebrated because WHITENESS has committed extreme atrocities on a global scale and CONTINUES to do so. “White pride” is a phrase that glorifies the subjugation, rape, displacement, genocide/murder, demonization and oppression of people of color. It celebrates the wicked “triumph” over people of color by white people. It should not be something that any white person would want to commemorate.
Furthermore, as a result of slavery and global displacement, many Black people cannot trace their roots back to which African country they’ve come from (without paying large sums of money). White people have purposefully destroyed important records that would’ve allowed Black people to identify their origins and celebrate their ethnicity so “Black” has more meaning than “white”. It serves to fill a gap which many displaced Black people have had to deal with, whereas a white person could most likely trace their heritage back to a specific country and culture.
No one is saying that it’s wrong to have Irish pride or Russian pride or Swiss pride. But “white pride” is racism in and of itself.
3. LOOK AT THE WAY THE BLACK GIRL IS DRAWN, AS WELL AS THE WAY THE BLACK DOLLS ARE DRAWN.
IF YOU DON’T SEE HOW EXTREMELY PROBLEMATIC THAT IS, GOD HELP YOUR SORRY ASS.
The Black girl and the Black dolls are drawn as disgusting caricatures and stereotypes of Black people. It is very reminiscent of the racist caricatures presented in cartoons and media mere decades ago.
This is completely unacceptable.
This entire cartoon is completely unacceptable.
(Source: antigravity000)
Lately, I’ve read so many comments and posts about messages (and I too have received messages) that have me fed up with some tumblr users’ sense of entitlement.
1. “You’re a social justice blogger”
If you say this to people who are members of marginalized groups, you are probably wrong. The interests of those belonging to marginalized groups are indeed compatible with social justice, but they are bloggers. If you think that someone is writing for an audience simply because they’re not white, straight cis men, you’re wrong. They are writing about experiences that affect them personally or are relevant to their lived experience. Which brings me to…
2. “What a great learning experience!”
I’ve seen this several times now. Yes, it is great to learn about things that you never have and possibly never can or will experience, but keep it to yourself. By reducing someone else’s pain and suffering to a learning experience, you’re treating them like some sort of sideshow act. You’re profiting from their pain.
Marginalized people have been exploited throughout history in the name of science, learning, or knowledge. Sarah Baartman, the Tuskegee Experiment, and more. I know you think this is an exaggeration, but the only way that this kind of exploitation was found acceptable is because the persons involved were dehumanized and reduced to objects for the sake of learning or entertainment. If you want to learn, don’t ask…
3. “But why won’t you teach me?!”
I know, I know. When you’re privileged you are used to having things handed to you. This flips your world upside down.
The truth is that you and you alone are responsible for your own education. Where do you think you get off demanding that someone else do your grunt work? Do you also email professors and public figures and demand homework help?
You must have such a strong sense of entitlement to expect such favors. I can’t tell you how many times in my life I’ve had people put the burden of educating other people about my own marginalization put squarely on my own shoulders. If you want to learn, I recommend Google, Google Scholar, and your public or school library.
I’m not saying that you can’t ask questions. Anyone who has messaged me knows that I generally do respond. And when thinking of very popular bloggers, many do seem to answer sincere questions, but they are under no obligation to do so. Hell, RacismSchool has an entire blog of well-written posts and resources. If you’re sincere, people might be fine with answering your questions, and they might just be nice, but they don’t have to. They also don’t have to write about what you please, so no demands that we…
4. “Stick to the theme!”
I know it’s hard for some people to envision, but behind their computers, those who post on tumblr are real, live, complex, multidimensional human beings. You may have followed someone for a particular reason, but they likely have other interests, so don’t try and dictate the content of what they post.
How are these two cases even remotely the same? The level of white privilege is too much to take. I’m embarrassed for them.
Kaxbe: Ugh…
…according to a study in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science.
The study, called ‘Whites see racism as a zero-sum game that they are now losing‘, by Michael Norton and Samuel Sommers, suggests that white Americans surveyed think that they are now more widely discriminated against than black people, and that this supposed ‘anti-white bias’ is a bigger societal problem than the real anti-black bias. (This is an American-based study, and I think the problem is probably more prominent there, but since I only know the UK, and I see a similar trend happening over here, I will be using UK-based examples.)
After all of the wrongdoings of the past, governments are now at least trying to make society more equal for everyone, but the damage that has been done has penetrated society too deeply to disappear overnight. Ideas that black people and indeed people of other ethnicities are in some way inferior are ingrained in the collective consciousness, to the extent that when their position in society begins to improve, white people have started to cry ‘racism!’ Are we really selfish and shortsighted enough to convince ourselves that all along, all they were complaining about was the fact that white people had a more privileged position in society? Is history no longer taught in schools?
(Source: bencrowther)
What Blackface Is NOT: Lie Sang Bond’s Paris Fashion Week Face Paint Controversy
As with 2011’s controversial “blackface” photos of Beyoncé for L’Officiel Paris, this “controversy” gets the serious side-eye. Clearly, people have no idea what blackface is nor the characteristics of the practice.
Kaxbe: So the article linked is rather stupid.
…Informative articles and books on rape, rape culture, and racism/white privilege for some … under-informed/misinformed people that I know. Not stacks and tons of it, because I feel that each person should take the time to be aware and do their own homework. Just a few things to offer some much needed perspective.
I used to be a bigot. I used to think that boys will be boys, and a provocatively dressed woman may indeed be more prone to being assaulted or as some put it “asked for it”, I used to feel that anyone, ANYONE could ‘pull themselves up by their bootstraps’, and that minorities were not systematically oppressed.
I used to SAY THESE THINGS. OUT LOUD.
And then, over time, I noticed more and more… I challenged my own thinking. I observed. I talked with some people. I read some articles, some blogs, I want to read more books.
I am not on a mission to change anyone’s mind. Change comes from within, and I am not naive enough to think that anyone, particularly the people in question, will give a damn about what I have to say, much less what any of the thousands of people- gays, women, African Americans, Latinos, what THEY have to say, what THEY have BEEN SAYING.
But it’s just not my style to sit around and do or say nothing.
Anyhow, if anyone has any suggestions for me, books, articles, blogs, groups, I would like more info to read, please.
Yes I am using Google to come up with some results on my own, and yes, I will visit my local library, I am not requesting people to look things up for me, but as I can’t read EVERY book available, I would like to read what would be considered “better” or “best”.
Inbox me.
Take notes, white people. This is how you do it.
(Source: randomlyrelevant)
I am so over all of these THINGS showing up on my dashboard making thinly veiled references to Trayvon Martin and “reverse racism”. If I see another “Look how the media is portraying him as One Way when he really is like This” or “Why aren’t we mad about that time those black people killed those white people?” I will pop a blood vessel. They’re not even accurate. Do you know what Google is? Do you know how to search? Please do that. And grow up. Stop automatically hitting Reblog because you see a post with a bunch of Notes by a whole lot of Whiny White People that you feel kinship with because none of you have ever rationally thought about race relations in this country with any sort of depth or critical examination.
I mean…
ARE YOU FORREAL THAT SHORTSIGHTED? Get off my Internet. I am not foolinwitchu today. No really. I might be on White People Strike right now.
Basically, if I am your Only Black Friend, you probably have no business commenting about race. Because you’ve probably never in your life had a real discussion about race with a person of color. And I mean friend, as in, we hang out. Not friend as in you take coffeebreaks together at work.
[/end rant]
