cruelestyouth:

Answer this question:

What does it mean to you to be white?

Answer honestly.

If your answer was “nothing,” then you have A LOT of reflection, critical thinking, and research to do before you ever even TRY to relate and talk to PoC.

ladyatheist:

Look, if you see a post where someone is questioning why white people do racist shit and the only damn thing you can think to say is “but I’m not like that”, you’re part of the god damn problem. Why? Because you have just successfully derailed the conversation and made it all about you and your feelings. By saying “but I’m not like that” and declaring how “hurt” your feelings are, you’re signifying that your feelings are more important than the whole race of people who are hurt and degraded by white people who choose to do racist ass shit. Instead of saying “do I do that” or “hey, maybe I should take this as a warning not to do that”, you chose to launch into a diatribe about how hurt you are and how that completely invalidates the original post. That is fucked up and it makes you part of the problem.

my-journey-my-thoughts:

• Intent is not fucking magical. Just because you “didn’t mean to racist” does NOT change the fact that whatever it was got you called out was racist.
• Having PoC friends does not preclude you being a racist. In fact, when you say this, you make yourself look more guilty because if you TRULY weren’t racist, you would be able to accept getting called out, learn from it and move on.
• If a PoC tells you something is racist and offensive, do not argue. You, as a white person, have no experience with racism. You are not an authority on racism. In saying “BUT IT’S NOT RACIST!” you are saying “Well, I don’t care what your life experiences have taught you, all that matters is my opinion.”
• If you say “We’re not ALL like that,” you’re pretty much outing yourself as a racist. If it’s not about you, if it doesn’t apply to you, then why do you feel the need to so vehemently assert that *you’re* not like that? 
• If you derail, you’re being an asshole and trying to hijack a conversation. Knock that shit off.
• If you jump into a conversation that doesn’t include you, you’re being an asshole. Do not invade PoCs’ safe spaces. They created that place to get away from you, a white person, and don’t fucking want you there.
• It is NOT the job of the oppressed to educate the oppressor. There’s this wonderful thing called google, use it. There’s a tag search option on here, use it.
• IF YOU ARE CALLED OUT on something you said, apologize for fucking up. DO NOT SAY “I’m sorry you’re offended.” DO NOT SAY “I’m sorry that you feel that way.” DO say “I’m sorry for fucking up, I won’t do it again” AND DON’T DO IT AGAIN.
• If a PoC tells you to fuck off, fuck off. It’s as simple as that. Chances are they’re sick of dealing with shit and DO NOT need anymore fucking annoyances.
• If you apologize, and the apology is not accepted, deal with it. Just because you’re sorry doesn’t mean they have to accept your apology.
• It doesn’t matter if your feelings are hurt. Your feelings are NOTHING compared with the amount of shit PoC put up with. All you get out of being called a racist is hurt feelings. Deal with it.
• Lastly, racism doesn’t just mean shit like the KKK or the Aryan Nation. Racism is much more subtle than that. It’s built into the system in America. It is worldwide. Consider the following:
  
  It’s not uncommon for people to get plastic surgery to look more “white”, be it rhinoplasty, getting eyelids operated on to give them a more “wide-eyed” look, it’s all in the name of looking “whiter”.
  
  There are skin lightening creams available to bleach skin. There’s even one to lighten your vulva/genital area.
  
  In many cultures, “Western” styles and ideals of beauty (AKA Whiteness) are considered superior. This is true the world over, not just here.
• Whiteness=/=ALL white people. Whiteness is the above ideals. It’s the idea that whiteness is superior.

So, the next time you sit there and feel the need to interject your feelings when PoC are talking, remember this list. Remember that your feelings getting hurt < what PoC have to deal with because of racism. Remember that racism is not outright acts of racism. And remember that ultimately, it’s not your place to talk, so sit down, be quiet and LISTEN.

Don’t just HEAR what PoC are saying, LISTEN TO IT and LEARN FROM IT.

(If I’ve forgotten anything, let me know. I know I probably did, but it’s getting late >_<)

dumbthingswhitepplsay:

Repeat after me:

IF I AM WHITE, MY MARGINALIZATIONS ARE ALWAYS COLORED BY MY WHITENESS.

Say it again.

Say it a third time.

Say it a FIFTIETH TIME.

No matter what marginalization you have, your experience is tainted by your whiteness. You get the BEST average experiences in your marginalization, and you CONSISTENTLY forget this when you generalize and assume that your experience is the norm.

This goes for ALL marginalizations. There is NO marginalization in this world where white people do not receive the BEST average experiences of the group. If there is success in the group, it will be YOU. On the SMALL chance that one of you is attacked, your justice will be more often than not delivered to your door in a timely fashion. When someone discusses “group” issues, they will discuss YOUR issues, often leaving out any additional issues that people who are NOT you experience. There are experiences PoC go through that you will never even know existed, that you will not be required to know exist, and that you will ERASE repeatedly because you never knew and never cared to find out.

And here’s another thing you don’t know, white people:

Sometimes the experiences of PoC in a non-racial marginalization will be so COMPLETELY DIFFERENT to yours that you will literally have NO idea what they actually go through. SO different that it will sometimes be damn near in OPPOSITION to the information you’ve been hearing!

NEVER assume that your white experiences can be correlated to PoC experiences. NEVER assume that you have anything in common with all or most people along your marginalization. Most PoC within a certain race have more in common with each other, over ALL other marginalizations, than a white person in 2-3 of the SAME marginalizations will have with them.

THAT IS WHITENESS.

brazenbitch:

Whiteness is nothing to be proud of. When you say you’re proud to be white this is what we PoC think of:

Things to be proud of:

• Your heritage,family traditions/history,food,music etc.
• but never whiteness
• because whiteness is a history of terrorism,islamphobia,cultural appropriation,racism,oppression,ignorance,eurocentrism beauty ideals,sexualized violence against WoC to maintain white dominance and exert white power,slavery,white supremacy, massive resistance,racial profiling,imperalism, land stealing,jim crow laws and minstrel shows, interment camps,eugenics,hypocrisy,white educational standards,white privilege,hate,dominance and humiliation,genocide…. (please feel free to add your own)

Whiteness is nothing to be proud of because whiteness has destroyed lives because whiteness believes everything non white to be inferior and wrong. People of Color should be proud in our coloredness because our history is and continues to be a history of survival. Our land has been stolen from us, our dignity burned to the ground, our women raped with no justice,our countries bombed and terrorized for Oil. We have been made terrified to walk in our own streets at night for fear of being killed simply for looking like we don’t belong. Our heritage as been appropriated by the very people who killed our ancestors, and who continue to humiliate our people. Colored history is a history of survival,and we must be proud in our history, of the leaders who came before us in the midst of hate, so we can build our radical communities of color so we can not only survive, but thrive.

So sit the fuck down, and shutup with your white nonsense. 

(Source: blck-grrl)

sheiswolf:

I’m just really fucking sick of my fellow white cousins right now. 

What the fucking fuck is so hard to comprehend about there being nothing wrong with clubs, tv stations, scholarships, etc geared towards people of color but there is everything wrong with trying to uphold white supremacy by claiming those things are reverse racist?

I honestly don’t understand why it is so fucking hard for my fellow white people to believe in equality.

Other people gaining the same rights we have always had does not take anything away from us.

So shut the fuck up.

mellybee09:

If you are black and not aware of the 400 year genocide that has been happening in America, then today I am telling you it is happening. Sometimes you can pretend its not, you can ignore the black faces on the nightly evening news, you can become absorbed in your daily life and just hope that it’ll never be you or someone you love, or you can look. I’m guilty of pushing aside some of these travesties because I didn’t want to let it make me crazy. I always held on to the hope that things can change. I used to be a hope-monger and Obama-ite. In high school I was drinking the Kool-Aid, thinking if we just spread the love and some affirmative action everyone can get a little scoop of the American Dream. Fuck all of that. I read a news article today Woman Dies After Being Dragged From Hospital and I was on the verge of tears. Whats worse, this happened a while ago. Especially after I heard about how Trayvon Martin was killed, each murder I read about gets harder. Each and every case of this sort of terror just exacerbates my anger and sadness. I’m ready - I’ve been ready - to drop what I’m doing and revolt. Enough is enough. Isn’t 147 years after Emancipation and 403 years after the first slaves were brought to this country long enough?  In the words of Lupe Fiasco, it just “hurts me soul.”

What so many of us need to realize is that we can reform forever, but the core structures of power and oppression that hold up this society won’t change. You can redecorate a house built on a dangerous foundation as many times as you’d like but the shit will still fall down. This society was NOT created for you (black and brown people). “Of the people?” They do not think you are a person. When I say they I’m talking about the evil ideology that is Whiteness that most people still ascribe to. (Note I did not say white people I said whiteness. I am not racist nor am I capable of being so because racism is a institutionalized ideology based on power and mass oppression).

I just read Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. That book is so poignant and relevant, I highly suggest reading it. I want to point out a couple interrelated occurrences:

1. The main character, Invisible Man, was expelled from college. The Dean was scared of who Invisible Man was (black) and wrote letters to tentative employers telling them to give him the hope that he will be able to come back to the college, to stall and prevent him no matter how much he tries to improve.
2. In a dream Invisible Man opens a letter which says, “To Whom It May Concern … Keep This Nigger-Boy Running.”
3. The Paint Factory where Invisible worked made optic white paint - the whitest of white paints. The paint was to repaint buildings in Washington D.C.  The man central to making the perfect white paint, who new the inner workings of the machinery used to make it, who the owner of the company would not let leave was an old black man. Think about it. 

They want us to keep running, to keep trying, to keep pushing for reforms. We need to go deeper than that. I hate to iterate American tropes but we need to create a society in which it is actually believed that all people are equal and treated justly. 

Until we get out of this trance. Until we open our eyes, until we realize that we are invisible - real, dramatic change will not be possible.