If you can't show up in person, make a phone call. If you can't call, write a letter. If you can't write a letter, an email.

In order to liberate our communities from this lovecraft country's Jim & Jane Crow violence, we have to upRoot white supremacist politics and practices from the root.

Update: He's alive and started school again in August 2023

And the man who shot him will stand trial in... October 2024?!?!

Holy fuck I hate this country

i swear to god if this is another one of those “schedule it so far out in the future that no one's going to remember to look at it while we decide to quietly let him off the hook” kinda things. they better find him guilty

personally, as a transfeminist, i wouldn't particularly feel inclined to die on the hill of "all perception of men as a threat is value-neutral, and comes from the privilege men experience within the patriarchy." i just simply don't think "it is men's jobs to ensure they do not make women feel uncomfortable or distressed with their presence" is the world's most unassailable feminist hill, especially as someone with black men in my family whose experiences with racism color my day to day life. but that's just my opinion and all.

but seriously: going through life watching someone contort himself into a passive receptacle for white women's desires and emotions, to the point that his instinctual first reaction to being sexually harassed is to laugh and go along with it, really fundamentally shapes your perception of gendered violence. i am unable to align with "safety tied to gender" feminism, or "manhood as inherently threatening" feminism, because i look at it and see him being berated and screamed at over the phone for hours by his (white) best friend, portrayed as threatening and angry by his adoptive (white) mother for expressing mild distress over police brutality, used as an unpaid workhorse by his (white feminist) bosses, treated as a threat in (white) queer spaces when not performing femininity and pressured to overperform femininity to make up for his "scary" appearance as a bearded black man, used as a emotional sweat rag by every white woman he's ever dated, oversexualized and groped and harassed in queer spaces (by mostly white women), and more that i can't even begin to get into right now.

i just think that perhaps some of the transfeminist discourse on this website right now is not only really painfully obviously extremely white, but also, dominated by white people who do not have any consistent lifelong relationships with black men. i feel like it's incredibly easy to understand that gender, as an axis of oppression, is so fundamentally constructed from white supremacy that you cannot analyze the patriarchy without white supremacy being part and parcel with it, if you just. have black people in your life. and this would lead you to the conclusion that gendered violence is not actually innately a byproduct of gender-the-customizable-identity itself, but rather, that gendered privilege and violence are constructs of the system we live in that constructs "male" and "female" as inherently white, abled categories.

this community has a fucking problem.

Ruby Bridges is 68. This is not ancient history. Not even close.

I know Ruby. She's a really nice person. The idea that they would try and write what she did as a girl out of history is shocking to me on so many levels, the simplest of which is just, but don't they know how lovely she is?

Ruby was in Tucson, AZ last Thanksgiving. I wasn't able to attend due to illness, but I appreciated the opportunity.

Remember The Blind Side starring Sandra Bullock? The movie showed how a kid who had an extremely rough upbringing got help from the family of a school friend, found success in football and ultimately ended up being adopted by the family. Turns out he was never adopted.

Michael Oher says that he was tricked by the Tuohy family into signing documents that made them his conservators. Since he was already 18 at the time the family told him, “that it means pretty much the exact same thing as 'adoptive parents,' but that the laws were just written in a way that took [his] age into account.”

Oher also says that papers were signed so that his story and likeness were given away for free to use in The Blind Side. He also never got a single royalty check for the hugely successful, Oscar nominated film in the 14 years since its release.

It just continues to baffle me that they essentially purchased a young Black man's life to make football money off of, like buying a racing horse, except a person. Like, I don't know how else to say it. And then made everyone think it was something wonderful they did to "save" an "impoverished, Black boy", and he's been saying it for years to no avail that they took advantage of him!

This is ventier than what I usually post but I'm just sooo irritated.

I was trying to explain how because I'm Jewish, I'm not white, and how that is directly because nazis (and other antisemites) view Jews as a separate race. They don't view me as such and want me dead because of it. And this one person had the full on audacity to go "yeah but treating being Jewish like it's a separate race is antisemitic". YEAH NO SHIT, I WONDER WHY THAT DIDNT STOP THE NAZIS FROM COMMITTING GENOCIDE AGAINST MY PEOPLE FOR BEING A DIFFERENT RACE!

This person was poc too, and could totally understand why someone who is mixed or is white passing has situational privileges but still experiences racism because they're not actually white, but suddenly not why that applies to me because I'm Ashkenazim and pale? My skin color doesn't make me immune to racialized antisemitism, especially since I'm *actively and visibly Jewish*. An antisemite isn't going to look at me and go, "Oh pale skin, must be white! Time to move to the next person." They're going to see my kippah and Magen David and go "Oh another kike to kill."

This idea that simply *identifying as non-white* is an attempt to get out of privilege is really goddamn annoying and it burns me up when other Jews do it. It basically posits that "you're too racist to be non-white" is a legitimate line of thought, or that non-whiteness can be withheld until a group sufficiently atones, and that's a slippery slope to say the least.

Not to mention it invalidates the experience of the millions of Ashkenazim who are visibly Mediterranean and are *treated like it*. The idea of "the racism you experienced wasn't really racism because they thought you were something you weren't, now apologize for being privileged" smacks of gaslighting to me.

Reasons Why Fans of Color Leave/Don’t Interact with Fandom

Feel free to add

- fetishization and depersonalization of characters of color (to serve the white character’s narrative)

- (re)writing characters of color as abusive and/or violent to infantilize white characters

- being asked to explain why ___ is racist when it’s been spoken about at length or could be googled

random civilians are not responsible for the crimes of their government, and it is not a “guilty until proven innocent” thing

and this applies to everyone

really astonishing but unsurprising how people are taking issue with this post

The last two reblogs here by @tributary​ are screencaps of tags. The first (edited to remove hashtags) says:

and the second (similarly edited) says:

But ‘racism is dead’

Eugenics

I just felt these tags were too important not to add @blacksasuke

A truly moving story via Gregory McKelvey. Removing police from schools is an urgent need, especially for Black students.

so many white people don’t get this

[Image of a tweet by @decolonizeont saying “Friendly reminder that White Privilege doesn’t mean your life isn’t hard, can’t be hard, or was never hard… It means the colour of your skin will never be a factor in what’s causing your difficulties.”]

I’m going to reblog this again, during normal hours. See, when I was first getting educated about the notion of ‘white privilege’, I had a really hard time digesting the concept. The kneejerk reaction is to say “I may be white but I certainly haven’t lived the life of luxury”. It took a lot of deconstructing what privilege actually was for me to finally get it. I had an AMAZING professor in my Psych of Gender class during community college. She had us learn about race issues in nearly equal measure to gender issues. Group activities, open frank discussions, and really thought-provoking projects were central to this class. I grew SO much because of this wonderful professor. I went in feeling like ‘oh ya, i’m color-blind i don’t see race, we’re all the same, i’m super open minded blah blah’ and had some classic white notions of ‘poc over-reacting to perceived racism’ among other things. What finally clicked for me in terms of privilege, specifically, was one single handout. One piece of paper finally made it all make sense. It was written for a white audience and gave examples of thoughts and concerns that I, as a white person, will pretty much never have. Examples from memory: -When I am pulled over by the police, I never wonder whether my skin color was a factor. -When I interview for a job I never worry about my skin tone or name affecting the outcome. -I’m never followed around stores because of my skin color. I mean, there was about 30 items if not more that all had a similar sound to them. (I wish I had saved a copy.) But it was powerful for me, because I had never really realized that point of view, in those sorts of terms.  The professor’s lessons were endless and helped to really tear down a lot of those ‘kneejerk’ sort of reactions and self-placating beliefs. I could go on and on about the powerful lessons we all learned.  And I’m *still* learning and working to deconstruct my unhealthy, inaccurate privileged points of view. Recently, my patient in our hospital complained about ‘someone wearing too much perfume’ which she said was affecting her ability to breathe. Which may well be a legitimate concern. From inside her room, she saw one of my black co-workers walk past and from then on insisted that the smell was coming from her. To the point where my supervisor asked my black coworker to change assignments. The patient was sweet as damn pie to me, so I was very much was on board with the perfume issue. My black co-worker was LIVID. In the privacy of the med room she called the patient racist and vented about the situation while I kept quiet. A little later, another co-worker asked my opinion and I immediately came to the defense of the patient, thinking my black co-worker had majorly over-reacted… my patient was so nice! As the shift went on, more and more of this patient’s behavior became apparent. She was rude and short with any poc employee, and nice as shit with white employees. But the bottom line is this: My automatic reaction was to doubt my co-worker over a patient because I just didn’t see the racism in the situation. Because I never, ever have to worry about my skin color. (It turns out the nursing station was loaded with perfumed lotions and was just across from the patient room. It had nothing to do with the employee she complained about.) I digress. The point is, the above quote is an awesome way to put it. There are plenty of white people out there (like me) that can get very defensive when our unhealthy behaviors/attitudes are called out. So, I really, really appreciate it when someone out there is able to articulate it so well. <3

@valgiraffe-ooc that was really well put!!

That article is called “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”! It was a major part of my Social Work education and something that is beneficial for everyone to read!!! 

Here is a link to that article, if anyone wants to read it

Thx @valgiraffe-ooc for your honest post, to @pretentiousgrilledcheese for sharing the name of the article + @onyourleftbooob for the link! Fantastic article w/a killer first line “I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group.” It’s too easy for whites to claim confusion between these two. Exhibit A: post midterm election US President going off on a woc reporter.

Reblogging for the article link. Thanks everyone! <3

I just want to say that this is what I talk about when I talk about needing community standards unrelated to formal moderation on places like AO3. If you're in these parts of these fandoms and think this is bad, don't let them play in your sandbox anymore. Don't reblog, don't like, don't let them be part of your group in all the instances when they're not being actively vocally racist. Draw a line and say, what you're doing in our name isn't acceptable and so you need to stop. Support the author.

I just want to add that the author they’re harassing is Stitch from Stitch’s Media Mix. She’s been vocal about fandom racism for years, and even made something of a career of it. She’s been very important in mainstreaming the discussion about racism in fandom and we should support her as much as we can!

Please note, that when people find out you support her they might try to start some shit with you too, but if you put your foot down ,and get that block finger ready, you can sometimes nip that shit in the bud. Make it clear you don’t tolerate it, and block them!

They've also have a pretty dedicated lying campaign going against Stich too. She's locked down her twitter because folks were taking her posts way out of context (much like this hell site is known for) in order to smear her rep even more. At one point someone even made a fake ao3 account with her name in order the further the claims that she harasses fan.

All this over a few shitty ships. The brain rot.

This is what fans of color, particularly black women, mean when we say fandom's only fun if you're ride or die for the status quo. And that has always been determined by yt fans.

It's exhausting to be made a villain everytime you bring up the racist things happening in fandom in the hope of making fan spaces fun and safe for everyone.

We need to dismantle the systems in place that allow white people to get away with offering black people sub-par services based on the excuse that our bodies are more difficult to work with. Black hair is not more difficult than white hair, it simply requires a different skill set. Tattooing vibrant tattoos on black skin isn’t more difficult than tattooing white skin, it simply requires a different skill set. Photographing black people isn’t more difficult than photographing white people, it simply requires an understanding of photography. Doing makeup on black skin isn’t more difficult than doing makeup on white skin, it simply requires different products. Working with black people is not more difficult than working with white people you’ve all just been taught that it’s not valuable and therefore not worth learning how.

This is extremely similar to the dilemma faced by disabled people. It is no more expensive to design a building with ramps instead of stairs, it’s only when you create the building first and have to tear down the stairs and replace them that you incur costs. If we teach the skills of inclusion from the beginning, there should be no additional costs for services and accessiblity for anybody.

Initially I wasn’t sure I wanted to diverge from the axis of race over to disability, but I actually think that the analogy of that building and how it’s only after we’ve institutionalized inequality that costs are incurred trying to fix it, is a valuable one so thanks for the contribution.

jesus fucking christ look at all these fragile pieces of shit who can’t watch a movie with women and poc in them I'm💀💀💀

everyone who’s commenting “haha wouldn’t that leave like 5 minutes of the movie then😂😂” is missing the point SO hard

no, it wouldn’t. cutting all the female characters, poc and gay “rep” is actually….pretty easy. this guy did it and it’s still a solid movie.

you guys are giving marvel WAY too much credit. They don’t give a shit about representation, they don’t give a shit about you - the only thing they care about is money and looking Woke™

they did that by advertising how “progressive” they are for adding the first openly gay character ever!! let’s see when we can get an openly gay main character. or at least, dare I suggest, one that has a name.

they did that by hyping carol the fuck up and then only using her for 3 scenes

they did that by putting all the female characters in one shot for a Girl Power UwU scene; “oh look at us! we have all these female characters in one shot! we don’t hate women” isn’t that sad? that you can fit all your girls into one single shot? that despite your claims, all the girls combined still only have 116 minutes of screentime while the men have almost 400? isn’t that fucking pathetic?

it is. and look at this douche, look at all the assholes out there, this doesn’t mean SHIT to them, they take half an hour out of their day and cut a few scenes and boom - everything marvel claims is “progressive” is gone. none of their fake wokeness is important to the plot.

the gay character? who even is he?

T'challa and his family? their ~ 1 minute of screentime is easily cut

Sam becoming Cap? Where will we see that? In the show? Right. This person cut the scene and did that change the plot of endgame? the answer is no.

Carol? not much to cut since she was barely there

Natasha? The only thing she was good for is to die

Pepper? housewife. All he needed to do was cut the scenes where Tony washes the dishes and talks to Pepper, and cut Rescue’s, what, 20 seconds of screentime? and boom. ideal female, right?

Valkyrie? Oh she’s there alright, in the background, doing jack shit until Thor calls her queen in one scene, but does that scene mean anything? Do any of her scenes mean anything? Not to them. 10 seconds is all it takes and her scenes are all gone.

Nebula? kidnapped. dead

Gamora? insignificant. cut

you can’t mock this dude because “haha he has no movie left now 😂”. you gotta mock, no, hate marvel because that’s just the thing - he does. not a single poc or woman or lgbt person did anything that, if they left it out, the movie would make no sense.

and that’s just what he did. and yes, he’s pathetic for it, but don’t think marvel gives a single fuck about you. they don’t.

Aaaand someone said it … every single time a dude can make such a cut and the movie still makes sense, the movie has failed.

New rule: If you can cut all minority characters and women without losing plot coherency it is a failure. We can call it the Rian-Russo effect.

Reblogging again for the Rian-Russo effect!

“Let us put it generally: if a regime is immoral, its citizens are free from all obligations to it.” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Gulag Archipelago.

[Pictured: Captain Pia Klemp sitting in a chair beside her controls.

@VivianAngrisani on Twitter wrote on 6/8/2019: “Pia Klemp, a German biologist & boat captain faces 20 yrs in prison for rescuing 1,000+ migrants at risk of drowning whilst crossing the Mediterranean. Seeking asylum is a human right. Only 1 in 100 sea captains are female. This woman is a humanitarian, not a criminal. #FreePia”

@Galactic_Rabbit quote-tweeted on 6/10/2019 and wrote: “Thinking about all those videos of people honored in their old age for hiding/protecting Jewish people.”]

To all the people commenting that she’s an accessory to “illegal immigration,” note that seeking asylum is a human right. Countries which refuse asylum are in violation of the Geneva Convention. They get away with this and propagandize complacency towards the victims by using bureaucracy to complicate immigration proceedings. During times of genocide, this is tantamount to hearing a would-be murder victim knocking on your door and locking the deadbolt.

People who risk dying getting smuggled across borders do so out of sheer desperation because the situation they’re leaving is worse. Finally, you are missing the entire point: violation of the law is warranted when the laws violate human rights and criminalize existence. Laws which call immigrants “illegal” are tools of a systemic negligence designed to condemn those who need legal protection the most.

Oh and here’s the petition to #FreePia.