A Soliloquy of Sorts
3 months ago
Post has 295 notes.
the things I think about at art school race racism civil rights white supremacy oppression white people white privilege white guilt

Being racist is not being crazy, people.

In class today we were talking about all of these cases of race-infused violence in the south during the Civil Rights Movement, and Emmett Till came up. And of course we talked about how brutal his murder was - he was beaten, shot in the head, drowned, one of his eyes was gouged out. There was a quiet in the room as we all took in the sheer amount of superfluous physical violence put upon him and everyone from the black kids to the brown kids to the white kids could feel it.

So of course this white guy has to say that those murderers must have been “psychopaths” and “crazy,” because obviously only mentally deficient people would be so cruel as to beat a black kid to death over allegedly flirting with a white woman. And then a few of the other white people in the room were like, “Yeah, they must have been crazy, like serial killers are,” and suddenly an invisible white angel had appeared in the room to bask the white people in a beautiful white glow of non-white-guilt as they sighed a sigh of relief and the painful things that happened to Emmett Till or Medgar Evans or James Chaney suddenly became less painful because the white guys who did it must have just been crazy. God-forbid they were actually perfectly sane and were just hellbent on exerting the racial hierarchy and upholding a racist status quo.

Yo, for real, calling people who engage in violent acts of white supremacy or any kind of oppressive dominance are not akin to people who would be classified as “crazy.” People are drawn to think things like that because it allows any white person to separate themselves from their role in white supremacy and just make racism into something that is only perpetuated by individuals and not toxic and oppressive culture.

12 months ago
Post has 5 notes.
white savior film the help race racism last samurait avatar white guilt white people people of color oppression stereotypes exploitation

rollahardsix answered: my mom read this, and it sounded to me like it painted a very admirable portrait of these hard-working women. but I’m just a racist white boy

Yes, it is a very admirable portrait of these hard-working women. This conversation does not necessarily pertain to just The Help though.

There has been continuation of films in which stories about the oppression people of color are told through the eyes of a white person. Not only is that person the only white person who is magically able to see how much the people of color struggle, but ends up being the one who solves the problem with their White Savior powers because people of color obviously can’t solve problems on their own or be the leaders of their own revolutions. This trend occurs in movies like The Blind Side, Freedom Writers, and on larger and more grand scales, The Last Samurai and Dances With Wolves, and it is also a popular trend in science-fiction movies. Films like Dune, even Avatar and District 9 all have themes of a person from dominant oppressive group who always happens to be white saving the oppressed masses by becoming their champion, their voice, or their messiah. Films like The Help are on a smaller and more realistic setting, but they all have connected themes of white folks leading people of color (or metaphors for people of color) out of the terrible plight that other white folks put on them.

These kinds of films feed into this sense of white guilt that a lot of white people have. White people can take pride in watching films that have a white protagonist saving the oppressed masses. Particularity as The Help is a period piece, a lot of white folks can look at it at give themselves a pat on the back by feeling like white people are so different and have come so far from the oppressive white people of the past, but don’t consider how they might be perpetuating racism today. This thought, of course, is not usually a conscious theme, but one that these films exploit.

(Also, being racist and perpetuating racism are two different things)

1 year ago
white people people of color race racism oppression power privilege prejudice stereotypes ignorance white privilege white guilt
Via: Getcrazyx

You know what I hate?

getcrazyx:

People can say WHATEVER they want about white people and nobody says anything. 

But if a white person says ONE WORD about any other race, we’re the racist ones?

That pisses me off so much. 

That’s not true; white people can talk about other races, but a lot of white people don’t realize that what they’re saying comes from a place of privilege and power that make them sound really ignorant or sound like they’re stereotyping or being judgmental. Not that white people are intentionally doing so, it’s just that white people are trained to not understand how what they say affects people of color or contribute to racism.

1 year ago
Post has 5 notes.
race racism discrimination prejudice hurt white guilt white privilege White People history oppression abolitionists civil rights whiteness American nationality ethnicity stereotypes power victimize access
Via: That Vagabond Ginger
Just Me: It Breaks My Heart

justputyourlipstogetherandblow:

If it offends you I am sorry, that isn’t my purpose, I just want to have my opinion heard.

So I am in a Chicana History class this semester and the professor seems REALLY angry. She constantly refers to Americans as ‘Anglos’ or ‘Euro-Americans’. She constantly puts down America and her history…

That does sound hurtful, and certainly white people can definitely discriminated against, victimized, and stereotyped. And people of color can certainly be ignorant. Just give me a little time to explain some things about racism.

Keep this in mind, what you’ve experienced is definitely discrimination, and prejudice and stereotyping, but it’s not racism. Racism is based on power, and in America, white people have power over people of color. 

“but me NOR my immediate family have ever victimized anyone based on their race or nationality.”

When dealing with racism, it doesn’t matter if you intend to victimize anyone based on race or nationality, because as a white person, you still benefit from racism, you still have more power than a person of color just because of race. It’s called white privilege. White people have better access to housing, proper health care, higher paying jobs, and better education than people of color do. White people also control the highest paying jobs in the country, and control the government. And you could turn onto almost any TV station, radio station, or look through a magazine and find white people being prominently featured, but rarely find people of color being treated the same way. Even though certainly not all white people are rich or wealthy, like you said, many are dirt poor, white people still have the privilege of being white, and they are treated differently than people of color and have better access.

This does not diminish that you personally have been hurt because of your race, or that what was said or done to hurt you isn’t terrible, nor does it make you a bad person for being white, but distinguishing what is racially-charged, and what is racist is important, because the experiences of discrimination against white people is not the same as discrimination against people of color.

“Caucasian Americans (and other races too under different terms) are made to feel guilt and shame because of bad things that ‘Anglos’ did in the past”

Definitely, racism also hurts white people! White people DO feel “white guilt,” racism teaches white Americans to feel guilty about the privilege that they have and not do anything about it, which allows more racism to be perpetuated. It’s cyclical. And certainly, it’s hard for white people to be proud of their race. And it’s all about history. White people have had a history of oppressing, suppressing, legislating against, fighting, and hurting people of color for hundreds of years, it’s what a lot of the foundation for the nation was created on.

“But you should still be able to use your reasoning abilities as a human being to realize that not every member of that race or nationality commited that act against you.”

Of course, the actions of white people today should not be based on the actions of the white people in the past, but white people still benefit from the racism in the past, and that’s the real problem. Again, white people have better access to education, health care, housing, and more privileges because so much time in the past was spent on ensuring that white people could remain on top, and people of color on the bottom.

It’s hard to find things to be proud of as white. I’m half-White, half-Asian, and I can make a good list of how proud I am to be Asian, but not so much with white. I don’t have a remedy for that, but when I think about being white, I think about the numerous amount of white people who supported people of color; the white abolitionists, the white civil rights leaders, the white anti-racists who never get enough credit, because so much history presents whiteness as an oppressor, but rarely show the opposing side of that. We’re not at a point where being proud to be white isn’t equivalent with white supremacy, because so much of what whiteness is is really benefiting from the hardships of people of color.

I’m glad you’re emphatic about race and discrimination, so I hope you learned a little bit more about what racism is. If any of this didn’t make sense, I’d be happy to talk to you about it.

(Source: shesagypsyhesapirateontherun)