#knowing america's history of racism

[that-bi-bitch-writes]

i try to be friendly in the comments of fanfic but racism i can't deal with so 🤷‍♂️

#they made bucky captain america because 'the world still needs it's falcon' #seems racially motivated to me seeing as how if you've actually watched falcon and the winter soldier you know how importnat it is #bucky needs to take time and learn how to be a person #he is not in any way prepared to be captain america #but you do know who is? #the much more well adjusted black man #knowing america's history of racism #and the whole storyline about what they did #to black soldiers? #are you gonna sit there and tell me it isn't your bias for the troubled white guy and all your stucky worship? #bc then you're lying #that man hasn't even finished his court mandated therapy #he's still reeling from being a brainwashed nazi assassin #how is he gonna represent america? #well i guess in a way this country is being run by neo nazis #but really? #really?

[shallowspocketdimension]

FYI just want people to know that the abbreviation of Omegaverse with and without the slashes is a very real world derogatory slur that has been hurled towards Indigenous Aboriginal Australians for centuries. I obviously understand not everyone is fully aware of Australia's history of institutionalized racism, genocide of traditional land owners and the stolen generation etc., but seeing the Omegaverse abbreviation everywhere is genuinely frustrating especially when people are ignorant to the actual serious implications of the word when put into a different cultural context.

EDIT: it should be noted that is also frustrating that people outside of Australia don't really know much about it's racist history (which is no fault of their own, hell even my education on Australian history back in primary school was abysmal and never mentioned the countless genocides the English settlers caused on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people during colonization), but that's a whole other wider conversation - and even then you should be looking for Indigenous Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander Voices if you want learn about Australia's history.

#i'm pretty sure aboriginal australians in fandom have been saying this for YEARS but obviously people ignore them #due to fandom racism or just plain ignorant that fandom isn't an america only thing. #racism tw #auspol #omegaverse #ok to reblog #if it looks and sounds like a slur it most likely is one! #omegaverse tw #added edit because i realise that it's also frustrating that people outside Australia don't really know about said country's racist history #obviously thats part of a wider conversation of history education and how we should learn more about other countries in school #i get university and college cover that but people don't know that until their either go to uni or find out that info about other countries #through endless wikipedia article searches #this also doesn't even cover how people are actively re-writing or whitewashing history in educational settings #to push a specific (usually conservative alt right) agenda

[ignitesthestxrs]

are you a kiwi? I'm american myself, but honestly feel like I haven't seen enough kiwis talk about the locked tomb (though i think im partly just missing most of the discourse anyway somehow??)..

if you ever feel like layin out some more thoughts ab tlt id love to read em! <3

i am a kiwi! there is a small but thriving kiwi sf/f community, but overall people are not...terribly online, or terribly into fiction lol. i definitely know there are kiwi fans of the series out there but in general i can imagine most of them simply not wanting to get into it. i don't really want to get into it! i just saw a reply on a post i reblogged and lost my mind about it for a couple of seconds.

as a pākehā/white kiwi i am like, both protective of these books, critical of them, and kind of ill-equipped to be the person criticising how māori characters and māoritanga/māori culture is depicted in them.

tamsyn muir is a pākehā author writing māori characters that she didn't initially identify as such getting like,,,increasingly more māori in depiction as the books go on and she learns more about the general consensus on how white people should write characters of colour. and those māori characters are involved in instituting, recreating, participating in a uh....very roman? sort of societal structure? and in the latest book there's this further māorification of Jod while also depicting him as a radical under fire from the government in a compound, and act which has both deep historical and very recent (2007!!)roots in aotearoa nz culture.

this māorification of gideon too with the prince kiriona stuff is also: something. what is it? i don't know. i don't think it's Cancellable Offense Bad, or even bad at all. but there's an overall freedom of mishmashing aspects of kiwi and māori culture into a broader sf/f context that muir has kind of taken it upon herself to perform, when ultimately it's not her who should have been the person who got to do it, you know? the structural racism of the global publishing industry means that a pākehā writer can step up onto that stage with an ease and popularity that a māori writer is going to have institutional difficulty accessing in the same way. do i think carl tor editor picks up these books if they're written by a brown author? idk man

and then on the flip side - this is a part of her lived experience too. as a pākehā writer, choosing to write, do you include your pākehā-ness? your kiwi-ness? choosing to do that, do you include your knowledge and understanding of te ao māori/the māori world? are you stealing or are you sharing? what is yours to share in the first place?

these are questions that i think every pākehā writer should ask themselves as they're writing and they're also questions that i don't think have a Correct Answer, or even an answer full stop. they're things that i think muir started asking around book 3 lol which is a very better late than never kind of thing, but it's also clear as the books go on that she's laying down her road as she runs on it, so to speak.

i think muir is Trying In Public, which is a deeply vulnerable thing to do, but also, she is right now a very popular pākehā writer introducing māori character and culture to a broader audience, many who have not encountered any of this before, in an environment where very few māori writers have an opportunity to do the same.

so when that broader american audience comes and picks up what muir has put down and then unthinkingly applies their own american cultural lens to what they have in their hands - it's weird, right? it's weird in ways that many (i generalise - not all, obviously, there are also many americans who do have global context) americans can't understand, because those americans don't live in a world where they are outsiders on the global stage. even americans who understand that the rest of the world is not america have not necessarily experienced that in a way that is intrinsic, intuitive.

the world is shaped by america, either by its presence or by its absence. so when a pākehā writer creates māori characters and uses te reo māori/the māori language in her work, which then gets read and used and consumed by an american audience as though it is a creation that belongs in their worldview - it becomes disconnected entirely from the source muir borrowed, or stole from, or grew up with. it forces the conversation into this place of whether or not the americans playing with this particular doll know what they're doing or where the doll came from or why it's a doll anyway, instead of like, why has muir made this doll and should she have and are there other people making dolls, or are other people making different things entirely.

links to some sf/f by māori writers:

THE DAWNHOUNDS by Sascha Stronach

LEGACY by Whiti Hereaka

WATCHED by Tihema Baker

PŪRAKAU, ed. Witi Ihimaera and Whiti Hereka

GUARDIAN MAIA

#this is a conversation i like #am not an expert on #and should not be responded to as though it's the gospel truth about how to consume gideon or tlt or any of muir's work #or any pakeha author at all #if you should take anything away from this as an american reader it's that the rest of the world has learned how to create content #that is juuuuuust close enough to america's exported culture #that american's don't get too weird about it when they encounter it #but there is always like #way fucking more roiling under the surface than you are going to be aware of as an outsider #and that as an act of curiosity and discover and learning about the world #it really behooves people to like #tug on that thread and see where it leads to #(institutional racism) #but you know #cultures that seem very similar because they are white dominated have many common themes #but very different histories and interactions and manifestations #don't assume that because a story is being told to you in words that you recognise that you are getting the whole picture

[weirdo09]

being angry is kinda fun tbh. ig what they is true, your anger is the emotion that cares about you the most.

#cade’s things #cade’s thoughts 💭 #vent in tags #well while i’m talkin bout anger #i’ll just say things that make me angry #might make me feel better #racism in real life n in fandom #people ignoring POC because they are POC #having big breast that seem to alienate others #wanting to keep my breast the way they are but people wanting me to go against it #the fact that people whitewash slavery and black history as a whole #the fact i don’t know where i came from #my momma n my stepdad for being so selfish #america as a whole #white people idc who you are #being yelled at for my natural hair #teachers n school where they teach you bat shit #the st fandom’s homophobia n racism #not being able to keep myself afloat if i ever do leave this hell hole #my irl friends ghosting me #being treated like shit just because #being a people pleaser #having to act nice to people for they won’t explode on me or treat me like an angry black girl #being home #not being home #not being at school as my distraction #having to take care of adults twice (or more) my age because they’re so childish #white gays who act like their identity will make them oppressed

[akeianova]

watching urban planning videos is so incredibly fucking frustrating. like. all the solutions to car centrism are so easy. and almost universally cheaper than building and maintaining countless needless extraneous roads that also destroy neighborhoods and communities because theyre built solely to accommodate cars instead of people or bikes. and so many places just straight up dont have sidewalks and are straight up inaccessible to people with larger mobility aids like wheelchairs and the like and its so infuriating i hate this shit so bad.

#this is mostly abt america btw #i know there are def more places that arent much better but america is so bad abt it #and i know why its like this too #racism and lobbying by motor companies to increase profits and disenfranchise colored people sure are all over the us and its history #and its so fucking bad #its so frustrating #hate this shit

[bijoumikhawal]

sometimes I think about the one Copt I met who said he thought communal embrace of Indigenity as a political framework was bad because it "feeds our victim complex" basically and man.

#cipher talk #I know there are some Copts that do that but those same Copts don't just WALLOW in pity. They have an active interest in promoting #Coptic culture! They learn history and language #And like. One of my big problems with other Copts sometimes is there is a communal problem with solidarity with others #ESPECIALLY with other Indigenous people. I have seen Copts talk about their Indigenity at the same time as they say incredibly racist thing #About Indigenous peoples in the Americas. We are also bad at solidarity with the rest of Africa but that's not news #And this reasoning for rejecting the framework of Indigenity reads as the same kind of racism honestly #Like. Perhaps he didn't mean this but it comes off like he thinks anyone Indigenous is weak and doomed #Anyway. I know I'm not always /good/ at solidarity myself. I have blindspots. But my g-d do I try and want to always be better about it

[nerdby]

So you guys might have heard me mention this thing called Operation Ajax. Operation Ajax -- known as Operation Boot in the UK -- was a coup carried out against the 1953 Iranian prime minister by the US and UK governments. You can read about it in the book All The Shah's Men by Stephen Kinzer, but I just found this meme and it really drove home what an absolutely disgusting racist Dwight Eisenhower -- the US president behind the coup -- was.

Cause it feels like the name Operation Ajax was chosen to show how he thought white Christians were stronger than Muslims and South-East(?) Asians.

Fun Fact: Operation Ajax served as the inspiration for Frank Herbert's scifi book series Dune -- the plot is a metaphor for oil wars🙃

#random thoughts #eww #only in america #us history #global history #the middle east #christofascism #dwight eisenhower #this is so gross #books books books #books and reading #things they dont want you to know #all the shahs men #dune #racism #islamophobia

[hella1975]

has that other anon ever met an upper class brit because i guarantee they wouldn't feel the same after encountering All That

literally 😭 like comparing classism is so dumb when it’s very much a subjective, varied conversation WITHIN a country let alone amongst different countries but that sentiment can and should coexist with the acknowledgement that british classism Does Not Fuck About

#like u cant lob both country's classim under an umbrella term when comparing them #bc our culture and history with it is so wildly different #like american classism IS there and IS a serious problem the irony here is that literally at no point did anyone say otherwise #so idk why anon got so up in arms lol #but the thing about british classism and the reason it gets talked about so much is because it is such a huge part of our lives #and americans never seem to really get that like even americans that acknowledge it i feel still struggle to grasp the severity of it #I’ve seen a lot of much smarter well-researched people say that class and race in the uk and usa are flipped #so while it’s important to note that BOTH countries have serious issues in both departments the way they manifest is different #so the way race is treated with such severity/extremity in america and racism so normalised and systemic #is exactly how class is here #and the way classism is typically more indirect and underlying in america #is how racism is here #does that make sense? there’s a lot of articles online that explain it better #like im explaining it v briefly and it's obviously not that black and white but that's the general gist of it #and if ur american thinking ‘classism doesn’t FEEL indirect for me so you're WRONG’ #then consider im not wrong. that's just how severe it is here for me to be saying it #like idk I can’t stand this narrative anyway of taking away from the original problem to instead have a pissing contest about it #so this will probs be the last I speak about it #but it’s super interesting and it can’t hurt to know more about especially with the prevalence of americacentrism #which is why I responded so harshly to anon to begin with bc like really? #you saw ONE POST that wasn’t about america or american problems and got upset. be serious rn #ask

[this-world-of-beautiful-monsters]

Learning about Canada while growing up in white leftist circles in America is Wild because it gets framed as this promised land of free healthcare and reasonable politicians, you've got people making jokes about evacuating to Canada when trump was elected and the handmaid's tale portraying it as this almighty place of refuge...

...then you start learning about the meaning behind Orange Shirt Day and the Sixties Scoop and residential school denialism and MAID and I will never, ever say that the us is above any of that and worse, but how the hell did Canada get the reputation of being better?

#rambling sorry #just learning about the sixties scoop and it makes me want to throw up #don't know the extent in america because most of what I found was from canada #but fucking fuck IT WAS FULLY BLOWN CHILD TRAFFICKING #coming on the heels of residential schools #just give the kid to any random piece of shit as long they're white...this is absolutely disgusting #and that's on top of MAID and all the bad ways Canada's free healthcare can go #I don't know if residential school denialism is a thing in America but Canada apparently has a problem with #these wastes of space denying mass child abduction/torture/murder so good to fucking know #canada #canadian history #sixties scoop #residential schools #tw child theft #child theft #kidnapping mention #racism #colonization #colonialism #indigenous history #disability #ableism #anti colonialism #anyway I'm sorry to my Canada followers it's not your fault your country was/is a shit show #and it makes no sense because they ADMIT IT!!! A lot!!! #and people still thinking they're better! #trafficking mention

[factoidfactory]

Random Fact #6,393

The songwriter of Jingle Bells also wrote several anthems for the pro-slavery side of the American civil war (“Strike for the South,” “We Conquer, or Die!” and “Our Battle Flag!”).

It wasn't even a case of his family being douches like him -- the rest of his family were all staunch abolitionists.

He was basically the MAGA family member that everyone was embarrassed to be related to.

#merry christmas #racism #american civil war #united states of america #the united states #united states #christmas songs #christmas carol #little known fact #sad but true #music history #random fact #random factoids #random facts #random factoid #did you know

[sinnyclair]

Calling Thanksgiving National Day of Mourning is pretty cringe

Wanting to conscientiously ignore the continued discrimination and systemic genocide against indigenous people is also pretty cringe, but that's just me

#anonymous #racism // #or just general ignorance #i mean it's one thing to call out performative activism #but my post was pretty genuine #i know what i meant when i made it #and it seems like thousands of other people do too #enjoy your football and turkey legs all you want #i never said that was bad #but it's another thing to call the anti thanksgiving movement cringe #America has always had a bloody history y'all #and this blog isn't going to turn a blind eye on it no sirrr #rant in tags

[jupitercl0uds]

suddenly upset because when i was about 8 and i pictured/drew my future self it always looked like this

im not upset that i know ill never look like that. im upset because i was so obsessed with looking like that and i wanted to do so by 12.

my skin was darker than everyone in my class. not by much at all, but i still hated it. i'd insist it was 'just a tan' (even in the dark, cold british north) and that it'd go away eventually. maybe i was just a bit dirty and if i washed it enough it would go away. i used to wish i could peel of the entire top layer of my skin to reveal super pale skin, so pale that you could see every vain and the white of my bones.

and hair has always been a big thing for me. ever since i was little.

when i was 4, i used to have all sorts of proper afro hairstyles. i distinctly remember having afro puffs a lot when i was in nursery or reception. my hair type slowly changed to type 3 in like y1 or something. afro puffs turned to bunches, but then i decided i didn't like them and changed to plaits.

from reception way up until year 8, that's what i had. plaits, sometimes buns. and all that time, i wished for it to be straighter, more fair. the ends of my plaits always curled and i hated it. i'd pull on them, but it wouldn't work. it still curled. i remember being 6 and waiting in the school lunch line. i watched all the girls tie little plaits in the end of their plaits. they would literally tie knots with their hair. and it was so shiny and smooth. and they would take out their plaits and brush their hair and have completely different hairstyles. i tried to join in. when they combed their fingers through my hair and tried to style it, all i heard was 'oooh... er... i don't know how.'

i remember before all that, when i was a toddler, when i pictured my future self, i imagined a slightly fatter, slightly more muscular version of the woman from ratatouille. i don't look like her in terms of my face, but if you straightened my hair and bulked my up a bit, actually, yeah, i do kinda look like that. i dunno how i guessed i'd look like that, i was so young that all my facial features were all smooshed together, my eyes were giant and lower on my face and i was the normal amount of chubby for a toddler.

maybe if i were 10 years younger, and now i was the 5 y/o, things would be different. maybe all the girls would know what to do to help me play hairdressers as the customer. i doubt it, but i hope so. the only thing i can really think to end this with is happy black history month

#whoops accidental vent #ig racism vent??? #like i know thats why this is happening but i never feel like im allowed to say i experience racism cause i look white #and i am mostly white #3/4 white 1/4 black #oh but definitely body image vent #BTW! before anyone goes 'its not black history month wth thats february' #its february IN AMERICA (and possibly other countries!) #but here in the uk. its october

[clamorybus]

just remembered the 1776 report. jesus christ

#it was a racist diatribe that trump slapped on the presidential website like two #he gathered a bunch of 'academics' (none of them had a degree if i recall) #and they all wrote this long winded 'true history of americas founding' #didn't mention the native americans outside from the one line about them in the constitution #urged teachers to reject any 'activist propaganda in their curriculum' #and cribbed whole fucking passages from amders breivik's manifesto #aka that norweigan nazi who shot up a summer camp in 2011 #i know this is old news #and america is a deeply racist country #its not even close to a secret. like at all #but sometimes a specific example just socks you in the face yknow? #mickey.txt #anti native racism #*trump put on the website a few days before leaving office #sorry idk why my tag was cut off there

[the-cat-and-the-birdie]

It's time y'all.

Let's talk about HOBIE & RACE

- It is not problematic to say that Hobie would display black solidarity by finding black women in specific attractive.

- It is not problematic to say that Hobie would possibly like a partner who could understand his experiences with racism.

- It is not problematic to say he would possibly like a partner who understands how to take care of his hair, or shares the same hair texture.

- It is not problematic to say that Hobie would find beauty in features specific to the black race - when we have been told those features are undesirable in every way for centuries.

We gotta talk about how Colorblindness is forced on Black Characters - Hobie in Specific

Y'all - it's time we have a VERY VERY overdue conversation about Hobie Brown and Race.

Because it is a necessary one.

Hobie Brown, The Black!Reader, & Representation -

aka Black people are not Colorblind - and neither is Hobie Brown -

[let Diane hop on the mic right quick Chile]

Stop acting like Black Fictional Characters would be colorblind.

Black people can't be colorblind, because our color is weaponized against us from birth. We HAVE to see race - because we have to protect ourselves and know our own history

So when we decide to make spaces specifically for us - spaces where black people and black women in specific can be desired and uplifted, I don't see why people have a problem with it.

Hobie Brown loves, yes. But he also lives in 1978. Racial segregation was outlawed in his country in 1965.

Hobie Brown loves, but he's also a black guy who grew up under racial segregation and racism. He's a black guy who fights cops.

The Writers made Spiderpunk - The Spiderperson who fights oppressive cops - black for a REASON.

The Writers chose to have a black guy save Miles for a REASON. To uplift black people.

Writers here on Tumblr made Black!Readers black for same reason.

If Black Lives Matter doesn't mean White Lives Don't Matter -

Then 'Hobie Brown finds black chicks especially attractive' DOESN'T mean 'white women are unattractive'. This isn't about y'all.

And even for the people that say Hobie would like ONLY black people - okay??? They can say that - it's a literal headcanon.

It's not true if you don't want it to be. You don't have to believe it.

But seeing Black people be protective of a black character, and making black content for other black fans - and then saying 'what - stop that. that's wrong. break this up so I can join'

BEFORE you question why they do it - NOT COOL.

That's like asking for more Captain America in Black Panther. Like ?????

That's like hearing a Riot Grrrl say 'All the women to the front!!' and going 'Uhh, all genders are equal, why can't the men stand in the front too?'

Like yes, all genders are equal. But also - This isn't about them. It's about representation.

Stop preaching equality when we're asking for representation.

Cause there are dozens, hundreds, of white characters who only have white on-screen romances.

And their fandoms do not write black!readers. They do not care enough to say 'oh the show isn't representing this, let us do it.'

The media nor the fandom represent black women. They are an afterthought, always.

And you never see posts for them like -

'Dean Winchester loves black women. Dean Winchester loves latinas -'

When it's a white character only dating white women, with xReaders that always imply whiteness, y'all never call for diversity. At all.

You wouldn't make this post for Miguel.

But when it's a black character and someone suggests they only date black women, or people begin to write xReaders that imply blackness instead of your default-

Suddenly you care about diversity.

Because the first time, you're not represented.

Because let's be honest. Let's be real. No one is writing Hobie x White!Reader. Barely anyone is writing Hobie x Latina!Reader.

It's the Black!Reader you have a problem with. Let's just say it.

Allow black people to have their space, without unfairly calling for 'diversity'.

(aka the right to access to black safe spaces, comfort characters, and labor)

Hobie is an attractive, educated black guy who fights and protects people from the aggressors we ourselves genuinely fear everyday.

He is a character like we've never had before. He has so much emotional weight to us.

Let us enjoy him as we please. We aren't hurting anyone else.

We're just not catering to you. We don't have to.

If a black person wants to center Hobie's love on Black people, they have the right.

And I'm not saying you can't write him with a race neutral or even a White!Reader. Go ahead and write that if you want but just know-

1) If you want to write him with an explicitly white or non-black reader - you should approach the topic of race. You should approach and mention the cultural differences. Him going through racism. Don't erase that because you think it makes your writing ugly or sad.

And if you don't put it in, your erasing the reality and black experience because you find something wrong or uncomfortable about it.

2) If you want to write a race neutral reader - make sure they're really race neutral. Don't include details about hair texture, hairstyle, or skin color.

3) If you are asking black writers for requests - do not get mad if they make the request Black.

You cannot get mad at a black writer for interjecting their own experience when writing about a black character. You're basically asking them to strip their blackness from their writing so you can enjoy it more.

Why should they have to second guess and dial back their blackness when we're expected to do that everywhere? If they want to take a break, and write Black!Readers they can.

3) Understand that the black people are going to keep their safe spaces. And they're going to keep Hobie in their corner.

Because honestly, and I'm going to put this brazenly:

Hobie Brown as a character - and what he represents - means more to black fans than it does nonblack fans.

Does that mean he doesn't matter to y'all? No, not at all. Hobie absolutely holds real emotional weight and meaning to you on multiple levels.

But please understand, for black people - we connect to Hobie on an emotional, often trauma-fueled front.

One that you'll never understand.

There is a level that we connect with him on that nonblack people can't. As a dark skinned black guy, a black guy with natural hair, an alt black guy,

As a black guy who has canonically faced police brutality on-screen

To you, this screenshot is most likely Hobie flipping the camera off, edgy and punk. It's funny, tongue in check. ACAB and all that.

To us, this screenshot is of Hobie - a low income black guy - being physically restrained by police and refusing to stop even when they're taking his mugshot. It's a black guy openly flipping off the police and fighting them off and refusing to go down no matter how much they beat him and he's winning YES

After so many videos over SO many years of cops doing that to black men and them.. not winning.

And them just dying and us having to watch. And add another name to list.

When you see his laces, you most likely think ACAB.

When we see his laces, we see that he's a black man who took on a cop and lived to tell the tale. Which is a RARITY.

Because many of them lose the battle.

For us, the context and connection are completely different.

Fanfiction may just be a way for you to kiss up on random characters or comfort yourself, but for us - that's not the case.

For us, fanfiction is a way to show our experiences and features in a media and world that has collectively ignored them. Shunned them, called them ugly.

Maybe make a post or send an ask to a creator - and ask what Black!Readers mean for them, why they find it important.

Hobie Brown likes Black Girls.

He finds them beautiful. He likes wide lips and broad noses and kinky hair. He loves melanin, and brown skin in the sunlight, and seeing a them in a silk bonnet in the morning.

He loves not having to explain his culture, sharing coconut oil and shea butter. He likes seeing waist beads. He likes people who speak AAVE, with twang in their talk.

He likes ghetto black girls with the acrylic nails. He likes Stallions 6 foot tall. He likes masc girls. And fem ones. He loves black nonbinary people because we do not have to cosign to colonialist ideas of gender. And he loves him some black men too - a good fade will make him go crazy, he loves men with long locs and pretty smiles.

Hobie Brown finds the beauty in Black People that have been erased and demonized again and again by White Society.

Hobie Brown holds blackness dear. And he wants black people to do well.

Hobie Brown loves Black People. Hobie Brown loves Black Girls.

And that's on, what?

This has been a PSA from Diane Pastors. Y'all stay blessed out there 😌💗

Anyway what y'all wearing to carnival since we going to carnival and cropover and labor day with Hobie and bringing out all the flags. 🇧🇧🇧🇧 I'm bringing him to cropover in Barbados yeah I said it we're all going to carnival with him.

#spiderman #spider man #marvel #across the spiderverse #atsv #hobie brown #spider punk #spiderpunk #racism #antiblackness #antiblack #anti black #hobie x reader #hobie x black!reader #Hobie x you #hobie brown x reader #hobie brown x black!reader #hobie brown x you

[mylight-png]

The Political Racialization of Jews

I think we have all seen the people calling Zionism "white supremacy" and Jews "white colonizers" in order to politically justify hating us.

But, what about the Pittsburgh Tree of Life shooting? Were we white then, when that white supremacist barged in and killed our people?

But, what about the worst killing of Jews ever, the Holocaust? Were we white when Hitler systemically slaughtered us in order to preserve his white Aryan race?

But, what about our time in Europe (where we, in fact, do not originate from)? Were we white when we were made to live separately from the actual "white Europeans"? Were we white when we were routinely and systemically attacked in pogroms? Were we white when laws were passed, prohibiting us from buying and selling certain things (ask me where bagels come from)?

But, what about America, where "no dogs and no Jews allowed" was written on businesses. Were we white when Leo Frank was falsely accused of murder, then taken out of his prison cell and lynched when his sentence was reduced? And the university/employment quotas against us? Were we white then?

Were we white any of the times we were hated and discriminated against for being "other" and different from those who were white?

In those days, we were racially categorized as being not white, because being white was seen as "moral" and desirable.

But now, what is the easiest way to strip someone of any right to consider themselves a minority or marginalized group? What is the easiest way to encourage people to disregard one's experiences of hate and oppression? What is the group society considers most privileged, and thus least qualified to define morals and ethics?

White.

We are called white, because the same people who call us white say that anti-white racism doesn't exist. So, how can hate against Jews exist, if we are white?

We are called white, because the same people who call us white view being white as a form of moral taint.

We are called white, because calling us white makes them believe that it is justifiable to strip us of our heritage and deny the fact that we are indigenous to the land they claim we are colonizing.

We are called white, even though according to FBI data, Jews are the most targeted minority group per capita in the US.

We are called white, even though our experiences are vastly different from white non-Jews.

Throughout history, we have been forced into racial categories that made oppressing and hating us easier.

And so that is why, as a Jew, I refuse to align myself with any racial category. Because I know that, depending on which way the political wind blows, no category will be safe or accurate. And because I know that those categories have been used, and will continue to be used, as an excuse to hate me.

#jumblr #jewish #judaism #jew #opinion #antisemitism has no place here #antisemitism #proud jew #jewish and proud

[snovyda]

Historically, some of the biggest Russian opponents to domestic repressions are imperialists. Solzhenitsyn, most famously, is, on the one hand, bravely fighting the GULAG, and on the other hand - a vile imperialist with a sense of fascism. These aren't new phenomena, in many ways. Somehow one feels that [moving away from imperialism] is unlikely in Russia, because it goes so deep. This is just the latest Russian invasion of Ukraine, this is not just one war, this has been going on for centuries. Russian imperialism is embedded in Russian humour, Russian literature, codes of thinking. It's not about statements. It's not just about policies. When Pushkin writes, I don't know, "Кавказ подо мною" ("The Caucasus lies below me"), one of his famous poems... the amount of imperialist psychology that goes into saying that - that goes very, very deep. So until those much, much deeper sort of deep cultural roots of Russian imperialism, racism and oppression are addressed, nothing is changed. So let's think what we have agency over, in a way. [...] we can change the way Russia is perceived globally and in the West. Because this idea that Russia is a great power that has the right to a sphere of influence and that has the right to suppress others because it's great - that sits very deep in people's heads across the world. We can start working on that. So why don't we start working on that? Let's get people in my world - Britain, America - to re-read the Russian classics and understand how much imperialism and oppression of others there's there. Let's start de-mystifying this idea of "the Russian mystic soul" and really start rooting it to very specific histories of violence and oppression. Let's start changing the way Russia is perceived, so it's no longer seen as inevitable and so vast and huge that you have to drop on your knees in front of it, which still sits in people's heads. That means changing the way the universities overfocus on Russia studies and completely silence the voices of Ukrainians, Georgians, Kazakhs... There's so much we can do that will make people's perceptions of Russia rooted in reality. And they will help gain self-confidence to say, "Stop, we're not dependent on you".

Peter Pomerantsev

#peter pomerantsev #russian imperialism #russian culture #ruscism #russian invasion of ukraine #russian colonialism