super-eklectic1:

I was just talking to my mother about this!  A common hobby among my fellow alabaster people is masturbating to Dr. King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” while ignoring the work of such leaders as Stokley Carmichael and Angela Davis.  Not to mention Malcolm X.  :(  

Dear Chuck Russell, 

Without Affection,
Me 

super-eklectic1:

fuck this lady and everything she stands for

Aaaaand this is why I live alone.

Whoops meant to say “White supremacist society.”  

Whoops now you know where I go to school THE JIG IS UP!

Watched this today!

My fellow white people (particularly white people raised in America), I have a message for you.  Go watch this film right now. Then let this marinade:

Read More

I’ve said it a thousand times, here’s one more. 

sexartandpolitics:

If you’re white you’re racist.

It’s not the end of the world. Shhhhhhh….. Calm down.

But you me and all our white brothers and sisters is raaaaaaccccciiiissssstttttt.

We’re not all cross burning crackers telling n****r lovers that they’re going to hell. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that we all have issues based on our enculturation that makes us respond different to people based on their perceived race. Most often we respond more positively, with more trust and more compassion, to people with lighter complexions.

It’s not that we’re inherently bad people, just that the system we’re brought up in is inherently racist.

So the next time a person of color starts talking about white people and you feel like chiming in “we’re not all the same!!!!!!!! I’M A SUPER WHITE PERSON WITH NO RACISM WHATSOEVER” take a second to breath, gather yourself, and think about what kind of implicit associations you have with skin color and how your enculturation into a white supremacist society might have something to do with that.

And please… don’t bring up affirmative action as a way you’re discriminated against. It hurts my feelings and makes me sad.

Important.

An Open Letter to @Justkeepcool 

(To the folks who will get this on their dashes but don’t feel like reading, pressing the “j” key will skip past.)

Hey!  I watched the video you made about what @eb0nymermaid has to say about race and racism.  I also read the reactions and thought I’d drop you a line myself about it.  I’m going to keep it (relatively) short, and there’s a ton more I want to talk to you about, especially the idea of racism and what that term really means (hint: it ain’t in the dictionary).  But!  I’m both tired and easily distracted so I’m just gonna stick to the subject of colorblindness.

First, I understand where you’re coming from; as a white person brought up in a mostly white community, I thought along similar lines – “we are all one race,” “you can be racist against whites,” etc. But, thankfully, I’ve met a lot of really awesome people, especially people of color (PoC is a common acronym for that, so when you see it, that’s what it means!) since then and am closer to understanding what race and racism really means.  It’s true that humans revolved from a single source and migrated out of Africa, so if you really want to get technical, yeah, sure, we all share common ancestors.  But when people look around they don’t see that.  We see differences, and that is natural.  These physical differences are important parts of who we are.  There have been divisions over race since Cro-Magnon man died off and homo sapiens took the stage, it’s a fact.  Of course, I’m not trying to say that because these divisions are a natural occurrence they are therefore right or good – racial divides, and especially perceived racial divides, have been the root of oppression, genocide, and generally terrible things.

                And this leads us to the important part!

                “Colorblind”

The idea of “colorblindness,” that you can look at a person and see a human being before you see race, is, believe it or not, actually pretty offensive.  At first colorblindness seems like an ideal, you know?  But it’s inherently wrong, and I wish someone had told me that when I was fifteen.  Okay so why is colorblindness bad?  The first reason is that when you tell someone that you do not see their skin color, you are denying them their experience.  Weird, right?  What do I mean by that?  Here’s an illustration that perhaps you can better relate to from your particular paradigm:

I am a Caucasian woman.  I have light skin and blue eyes and most of my family came from Europe.  I have all the privileges and (certainly unfair) advantages of a white person in America.  I am also Armenian (Armenia is in the Greater Middle East) and am the great granddaughter of an Armenian Genocide survivor.  The Genocide – the history and experiences of my ancestors – is an important part of who I am; it means that I am now part of a Diaspora, I exist in this sort of strange community surrounded by denial and unresolved grieving.  Now, I’m pretty much as white as they come, so people don’t look at me and see an Armenian-American with a crazy family history who’s a member of this obscure yet powerful and beautiful collective memory.  So, sometimes that makes me a little sad because I feel like that part of my identity is overlooked, like it doesn’t even matter.  And it does!  It matters so much!

Now imagine what it’s like for, let’s say, a black person, when they’re told that their feelings don’t matter, that their experiences and pains and joys as a person of color are irrelevant, that the fact that this person has been systematically oppressed by a society that stupidly values light over dark is just silly.  Colorblindness snatches a person’s identity away from them, and there are few things more important to the individual than personal identity.  It may sound nice at first, but all it does is make people sad and angry.  It is a cruel, cruel thing, and you need to understand this.

We are all equal, and I know you know that, you’ve made it clear!  But to acknowledge someone’s race, to say, “Yes this person is white, yes this person is black, yes this person is Latino, yes this person is Native American, yes this person is Asian,” is not saying that that person is not equal.  We can still be different from one another racially whilst being equal as human beings.  Get it?

If you want to talk to me, if you have questions or problems, let me know and I’ll try to help!  This is a really important discussion that we should be having, but we need to be having it without throwing around insults and other nonsense, because that is extremely immature and extremely small-minded.

Keep yourself open to other perspectives and think before you speak!

Sincerely,
Bravenazar @ Tumblr

If the movie Red Tails skimps on realistic special effects, fetishizes aerial dogfights, forces anachronistic and simplified views of racism onto its historical characters, uses CGI to replace tangibility and therefore emotion, objectifies and/or fetishizes its black characters, abuses character tropes, and makes white people feel better about racism 

I will be.  So. Very angry.

A response! 

icingonthekaek:

Tumblr has removed some of the blogs in question, and has stated their position:

First of all, I would like to thank you for your email. I’m sure that sounds a little strange, perhaps ingenuous, but if there’s a perception of unfair treatment, then it’s best that we be made aware of it and perhaps get to explain.

The fact is, we investigate what blogs are emailed in to us for hate speech and other issues. Having searched, it seems no one has actually emailed in about the blogs you mentioned. As you gave me blogs to look into, I did and I have suspended several of them. Of those I haven’t suspended, I have either removed content (in the case of [redacted] ) and warned the blogger or the blog itself did not seem to be using the term for hate speech or oppression. In one case, they seem to have been saving the URL to prevent others from using it. As for some of the others, their blogs did not seem to have any hateful content. While the word itself is and can be considered hate speech, there are some cases where it is not considered hate speech, such as when used by those it was used to oppress. As we don’t require ID for setting up a blog, we have no way of knowing if someone is a part of that group or not before hand and can only judge by the remainder of their actions whether or not they’re using the term in an offensive manner.

Previously, we have suspended blogs similarly only to be emailed back and told that the blogger was trying to make a point, reclaim a word, or otherwise post what would have been violating content in the context of pointing out it’s offensiveness and the nature of racism in the US. As such, we try to take a more careful hand on such cases.

Particularly in the case of ‘deathtoallwhitepeople’, I do not actually see a record for this blog. If we had suspended it, we would see the blog and see that it was suspended; I do not in this case. This would mean that the blog had been deleted, which is only done by the owner of the blog or someone with access to the blog’s information. As such, that would mean that we had no hand in the disappearance of ‘deathtoallwhitepeople’ in the first place.

I hope this has cleared up any misconceptions you may have had about our process and our priorities.

Tumblr Support
support[at]tumblr[dot]com 

In response to their email, I sent:

I am happy that you are finally taking our reactions seriously, as this is certainly a serious matter. Additionally, the list shown was a representation of the blogs that are allowed to remain, not necessarily a list of blogs that had been reported, or that needed to be deleted/removed. But I do happen to know that several of them were actually reported since my post, and I am happy to know that some of them have been removed.

However, I hope you are aware that this is indicative of a larger problem. In the past, blogs like those have been reported, and those reports were met with the “freedom of speech” excuse. Death threats have been sent, and reported en masse, each report being met with the same lack of reason. There are screenshots and emails recording this. And while this is certainly not your problem, personally, it is still a problem.

I want to you to be aware that the use of that word by anyone other than a Black person is hate speech, period. There is no reason for anyone else to use the term, ever. Any time it is used, specifically when used outside the Black/Afrolatino community, the denigration of Black people spreads, our humanity is diminished, and the wide perception of our very existence is diminished, debased, and reduced to a caricature, as it has been for far too long. There is no way it can be used and not refer to a Black person in some way. There is no way it can be used, and not be hurtful. That is the history of it, and that is the fact of it. It is abominable.

I don’t profess to speak for the entirety of Blackness, but you must understand that this is a struggle that we’ve been in for centuries. The eradication of the lackadaisical attitude of a nation is at stake, and that is why it is so important. 

I realize that Tumblr is not responsible for the flood of this negativity, but every ripple begins with a single drop. Tumblr has a unique opportunity to stop this at its core — to halt the proliferation of these hateful ideas sitewide. Please consider a general announcement regarding your position against this sort of hate speech, as you did with the SOPA situation (though perhaps not as invasive), as well as a more accessible link to the Terms of Service, as most people haven’t even read them, and couldn’t find them if asked. Even a post on the staff blog would be helpful in making your position known. 

Thank you again for your consideration, and for your responses and actions in this matter. Your help is appreciated by so very many people.

Again, thank you to everyone who reblogged the initial post in support of this action. Your support means more than you know. To Racialicious, thank you for your support as well. I was hesitant to send that to you, and perhaps should have done so earlier, but I am quite glad that I did. Thank you for being willing to address the situation publicly.

To those who reblogged my initial post with hate or contempt in your hearts, you have shown your true colors. We see you. We know you. We won’t forget you.

And finally, thank you to all my friends in TheBlackout. You guys are the shit. I love all of you.

Sent to tumblr: 

super-eklectic1:

stfuconfederates:

icingonthekaek:

I’m about to write an post, as well as a guest post to a well-known external blog about this, and if need be, I will submit it to my local news organization for review, and I need for you to understand that before I proceed. This is not something you will be able to explain away or cover up. There is already a blog post that is spreading across tumblr about this, so it’s not like no one is going to hear about it. It’s already out there. Your staff has made a mistake.

You recently removed a blog titled deathtoallwhitepeople from your servers. This is understandable, and was expected, as the entire reason it was created was to point out the hypocrisy in how certain users are well-treated at the expense of others. However, you appear to have missed all of the following blogs:

• http://niggers.tumblr.com/post/15516686727/aw-my-first-hate-mail-this-is-so-cute
• http://niggayoujustwentfullretard.tumblr.com/post/15314167553
• http://niggersbeingniggers.tumblr.com/
• http://fatniggers.tumblr.com/
• http://theadventuresofniggers.tumblr.com/
• http://itsrobertoniggas.tumblr.com/
• http://niggayoujustwentfullretard.tumblr.com/post/14605588623
• http://niggersandicecream.tumblr.com/

These blog titles are equally reprehensible, equally offensive, and violate your Terms of Service in the same way. I can’t imagine why they are all allowed to remain.

I also need to point out that the 1st Amendment protects private citizens against governmental censorship. It does not provide protections against the actions of a private company, like yours. You  have the option — the power — to do something about this, to stop such hateful terms from being used against a group of people who are being harmed and oppressed by them. You’ve already chosen to use that power, and therein lies the hypocrisy: you didn’t protect the free speech of the person or persons who started the deathtoallwhitepeople blog, or protect other people of color from the death threats they reported to you.

In doing what you have done, you let all of the people who were involved, along with anyone who is reading and reblogging the related posts, know that you care for the so-called 1st Amendment rights of white persons, but none for the rights of people of color.

I am disgusted by your actions, and ask that you treat your members the same — that you remove blogs that use the word “nigger” in their title, and do not allow anyone to use it in their URLs in the future.

I look forward to your prompt response.

Everybody, please, reblog the shit out of this.

mimi is out here makin moves!!

And they all lived bamf ever after.

(favorite part - hyperlink to the ToS)

Of course the Tumblr Webmasters would say niggers.tumblr.com is protected by “freedom of speech” 

zorascreation:

Tumblr may be a bastion of social justice blogs, but remember this:

It’s still run by White people.

#important