suzy-x:

Frankly I’m bored of trite articles by trite white women and trite shows about trite white women and their trite straight sex lives. But now that they get PAID and CELEBRATED to write trite shit does that mean feminizm is over???

I’m revisiting this because I got a call this morning from folks casting for GIRLS. I had applied to be an extra on this show last summer, and I’ve been called back this week to play the “friend at a housewarming party.”

I suppose this is out of reparations to all POC for their absurd erasure and exclusion of them on their previous season. But you see, they’ve still fucked up; I’m not just a POC, I’m a white-passing one at that. I’m their safest bet, the one who white girls actually feel less guilty around because I’m not always so “in [their] face” about race. I’m not sure how I feel about doing this, besides the fact that I’ll get paid well and that after this part I can join the union. Even though I act part-time, I’m not someone who actually watches TV for these reasons (besides Parks & Rec), and I’ve still never seen this show. I don’t know I don’t know. I’m just curious.

colony-of-slippermen:

ladies, you know what they always say: “once you go white, you regret it for the next 300 years of imperialist exploitation and unchanging systemic inequality”

Why is that? OH, BECAUSE YOU’RE THE NORMAL, OBJECTIVE ONES

lukut:

i made a slideshow for my presentation

golden.

becauseproperteaistheft:

rich/ white people learn about/ study/ interact with other cultures for their own amusement/ ‘education’.  poor/ poc learn about/ study/ interact with rich/ white culture to survive.

sylviaandherfigtree:

fatwasandfanboys:

dear cis hetero white guys,

don’t date women of color if you don’t respect women of color. period.

s

i want to knowingly reblog this but i don’t want to let white queers to feel validated and like they’re getting let off the hook

i see you

AHAHAHA NAILED IT

redlightpolitics:

Lesley Arfin, one of the writers of HBO series Girls, on Twitter.

I suppose this is a joke? Is this how she deals with commentary about the lack of diversity in the show? I am baffled, someone throw me a rope!

It is taking everything in me not to tweet back at her asking if a. she’s ever been to Harlem, (a2. bonus points if she’s ever gone without clutching her handbag), b. if she’s ever been south of the Williamsburg Bridge and c. how the fuck she gets paid to write about Brooklyn without people of color. Oh yeah, and maybe a couple other pointed insults about her intelligence.

Frankly I’m bored of trite articles by trite white women and trite shows about trite white women and their trite straight sex lives. But now that they get PAID and CELEBRATED to write trite shit does that mean feminizm is over???

racialicious:

Daria: Look Jodie, I’m too smart and too sensitive to live in a world like ours, at a time like this, with a sister like mine. Maybe I do miss out on stuff, but this attitude is what works for me now.

Jodie: Then you’ll understand what works for me now. At home, I’m Jodie–I can say and do whatever feels right. But at school I’m The Queen of the Negros, the perfect African-American teen, the role-model for all the other African-American teens at Lawndale. Oops! Where’d they go? Believe me, I’d like to be more like you.

Daria, in one of her rare moments of sympathy, gets it, because she’s not a bad person and she is smart. I am not trying to single out all the white feminists out there, but I am calling out all you Darias: can you understand where Jodie is coming from?

— I enjoyed Lois Payne’s analysis of the racial divide within feminism through the lens of Daria you haven’t read it yet, please do!

This article is soooooo good. I bought the whole series on DVD a year ago, and in watching it as an adult I realize how much more I respect Jodie. She’s much more perceptive and less bratty than Daria— who usually doesn’t do anything unless her parents pay her off— and the racial politics of it all become really apparent in the “Gifted” episode. It makes me think about the unbearable whiteness of teen angst, how the characterization of the jaded adolescent varies across ethnic lines, and how even the sentiment of being “jaded” is somewhat informed by whiteness.

leonineantiheroine:

Sorting my preliminary thoughts out.

I don’t even know if the categories are even fair or relevant as they might all bleed in to each other. 

Also while I use POC, I’m mainly interested in Blackness and how white-identified is used against other Black people. And I’m not talking about people who do shit for money and to build a career. 

Circumstances where the term white-identifying is used:

1. POC 1 believes that POC 2 is talking bullshit, not seeing the point of view of another POC—could be POC 1 or maybe POC 3 and 4 :) / POC 2 could see this as a difference of opinion and feels attacked because it’s merely a difference of opinion. In case 1, POC 2 is a conscious POC.
2. POC 2 defends white people in the face of racism
3. POC 2 denies racism is happening
4. POC 2 denigrates members of the same race on the basis of white supremacist ideas.

I think when a POC calls another POC white-identified during Tumblr discussions of racism, that this charge is not very useful and is simplistic (even though there might be a grain of truth in it). And again yes there are POC whom are arseholes against other POC on the basis of race…

Times I’ve been called “white-identifying”: 1) when I willfully ignored/smoke-screened blatant racism at an event for the sake of assuaging the guilt of white organizers, and 2) when describing my politics as feminist or anarchist. The former was totally called for, I deserved that. The latter? Nah. I can see how the praxis has been dominated by white folks, but these movements have rich histories that involve POC and also supplement anti-racist theory in their analyses of gender and capitalism.

I think the most disorienting, confusing part has been, when called “white-identifying,” it made me question my actual identity as a POC, it made me think I couldn’t call myself one anymore. But it really shouldn’t do such a thing; not when I’ve lived my entire life as a POC, granted a non-black, light-skinned one. I acknowledge my experience is very different and comes with some privilege. But it’s probably more apt to say something like “___ has internalized racism,” “white-sympathizing” or “perpetuating of white supremacy” when we’re talking about POC who defend white supremacist actions/ideas. Whether or not they care is one thing, and it should always be understood as a casualty of growing up in a white supremacist society. But revoking someone’s identity or lived experience because their politics are fucked is another. I worry about the latter.

janedoe225:

that sounds really weird.

like, they fit more of that white supremacist standard of beauty

like, we are all going to experience racism differently. and we’re are all going to deal with it differently…

It’s a rather complicated sitch.

I think light skin IS a privilege. I have it. It’s the difference between me being “edgy” as an angry punk girl and a black woman being “threatening” if she were to be the same. Another example is the fact that, in some cases, I might pass as white; so people feel safe enough around me to disrespect people of color. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been out somewhere, or at work or school, and people basically shit talk and stereotype my family members without realizing it. Also, in the past, I’ve been given more credit or attention for the work that more visibly people of color have also done (i.e. the mess that is feminist organizing). Or, as a light-skinned Latina, I’ve been more trusted with work that other PoC could also do.  (The latter is prevalent in domestic work, which is what I do. I think of one experience I had, in which I was briefly a nanny for a Latino family who gave their housekeeper, a darker Mexican immigrant, less pay and definitely less respect than they gave me. And they didn’t respect me much.)

Being light-skinned benefits me institutionally and culturally, but not exactly to the same degree as if I were actually a white American. Do I resent the fact that white people are generally less threatened by me than they might be around my mother? Yes. But can I speak directly to the way a darker person experiences racism? No way. I think it’s shitty and inaccurate when people say I haven’t experienced racism, but acknowledging my privilege means supporting all those who experience it, even if I don’t experience it in the same way. And it also means doing my best to actively challenge or remove myself from situations in which I benefit from racism or shadeism. Like refusing to work with/for people if they think I’ll put up with that shit.