Flapjackstate: The Privilege Exorcism

This post is quite ranty and not very informative, but I had to vent somewhere.

This one goes out to all the people who have tried and failed to educate privilege-deniers. It goes out to all the people who have lost friends and excommunicated family members because they failed to grasp just how serious oppression is.

Keep fighting.

Privilege makes you feel like your opinion is inherently valid. It makes you think oppression is an intellectual exercise. It makes you think it’s all about opinion, freedom of speech and lively debate. The lived experiences of oppressed people are up for discussion. You are free to ask how, why and when they experience that oppression. Nothing can stop you.

There are a thousand challenges that oppressed people face, and I insist that they tell these stories. All I can say is that I have learnt a tiny proportion of what oppression is, and I constantly learn better ways to deal with my privileges. I want to be called out. I want to change. I want to be forced to give up the privileges I hold dear, because it is for the greater good.

This post is just a record of the privilege exorcisms I have tried to perform. To rid my fellow oppressors of their arrogance, their ‘logic’ and their thoughtlessness. I will continue to try, even when it is psychologically damaging to me. I am determined to make a difference. I am determined to use my privilege against itself. Sometimes privilege deniers can only face the argument from one of their own.

Sometimes they flail. Sometimes they bite.

But one day I will squeeze every last drop of arrogance from their privileged brains.

Read More

nezua: telegantmess: colorlines: The Death Penalty, Race, and the Victim » Sociological Images A chart showing the race of homicide victims resulting in an execution since 1976. Hispanic: 6% African-American: 15% White: 77% Other: 2% Since 1977, the overwhelming majority of death row defendants have been executed for killing white victims, although African-Americans make up about half of all homicide victims. File under “Institutionalized Racism and White Supremacy that has nothing to do with how many of your friends are people of color”
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nezua:

telegantmess:

colorlines:

The Death Penalty, Race, and the Victim » Sociological Images

A chart showing the race of homicide victims resulting in an execution since 1976.

Hispanic: 6%

African-American: 15%

White: 77%

Other: 2%

Since 1977, the overwhelming majority of death row defendants have been executed for killing white victims, although African-Americans make up about half of all homicide victims.

File under “Institutionalized Racism and White Supremacy that has nothing to do with how many of your friends are people of color”

(via bad-dominicana)

Source: thesocietypages.org

**Trigger warning for colorism, racism, privilege denial, self-harming**

Dark Girls Trailer

This documentary trailer gives perhaps a better view of colorism than Wikipedia. I also recommend the original blogpost I saw it on, which contains similarly grim details of the phenomenon which are similarly triggering.

Again, this is via theartfulodger.

Source: mikkikendall.wordpress.com

Colorism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Colorism is prejudice or discrimination in which human beings are accorded differing social treatment based on skin color. The preference often gets translated into economic status because of opportunities for work. Colorism can be found across the world. The term is generally used for the phenomenon of people discriminating within their own ethnic groups.

The term colorism refers to when lighter skin tones are preferred and darker skin is considered less desirable or darker skin tones are preferred and lighter skin is considered less desirable. In the United States, the phenomenon also occurs in other populations, such as among Chicanos and other Latinos, Indian immigrants and Caucasian Americans.

The name pigmentocracy is given to a group-based social hierarchy based largely on colorism. Also labeled as colorism, which is more discussed than others, is the phenomenon of lighter-skinned people discriminating against darker tones within the same ethnic group.

Wikipedia may not be the best source, but I was unaware of colorism until shown to me by theartfulodger. I felt the need to pass the term on to others who are unaware of it, especially white people whose privilege separates them from the experience of marginalised races.

**Trigger warning for racist privilege denial** Stevie drops some knowledge

steviemcfly:

Okay, first of all, the child who posted this is not even white. That little piece of delicious deep-fried irony should be addressed before I begin eviscerating this little piece of idiocy.

bowbeforeme:

Proud To Be White

Someone finally  said it.
    How  many are actually paying attention to  this? 

People have said it before. They were called white supremacists. Stormfront says that shit all the time. The Hammerskins do. So does the Klan. Maybe you want to look into some of those groups. OH WAIT YOU’RE FILIPINO THEY WOULD MURDER YOU.

    There are  African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian  Americans, Arab Americans, etc.  
    And then there  are just Americans. 

This is part of the problem. The rest of us aren’t considered real Americans. You get the privilege of being considered real Americans whereas the rest of us are considered lesser varieties who don’t have a real claim on our citizenship (see the birther nonsense for that principle in motion).

    You pass me on  the street and sneer in my direction.  
    You Call me  “White boy,” “Cracker,” “Honkey,”
    “Whitey,”  “Caveman” … And that’s OK.

I bet you a hundred dollars nobody has ever called you any of those things, and if they did, that they didn’t hurt you at all. None of those insults are in common use or have any power because white people control EVERYTHING. To paraphrase Louis CK, “Oh no, you called me a cracker! Way to remind me of owning land and people!”

Also, who calls white people cavemen? I’ve literally never heard that before.

    But when I call  you, [list of actual racist slurs] … You call me a  racist.

Well, if the shoe fits, caveman.

But seriously, if you’re not a racist, why do you want to use those terms at all? Think about that on the tree of woe.

    You say that  whites commit a lot of violence against you,  
    So why are the  ghettos the most dangerous places to live?

Poverty and desperation cause violence. The worst-funded schools are in the hood. The worst roads. The worst parks. You take people who have to focus too much on survival to have time to escape the cycle, put them in Section 8, and treat that shit like District 9. What the fuck do you expect? It has nothing to do with skin color and everything to do with the fact that ghettos even exist.

    You have the United Negro College Fund. You have Martin Luther King
    Day. You have  Black History Month. You have Cesar Chavez Day. You  
    Have Yom  Hashoah You have Ma’uled Al-Nabi You have the NAACP.  
    You have BET. 

  If we had WET  (White Entertainment Television)  … We’d be  racists.  
    If we had a  White Pride Day .. You would call  us racists.   
    If we had White  History Month .. We’d be  racists.   
    If we had any  organization for only whites to “advance”  OUR lives  ….
    We’d be  racists.

Jesus, Mary, and Jerome, you’re an [ableism redacted].

You have the vast majority of the wealth, privilege, and all kinds of historical benefits that make it far more likely for you to be able to fund your education. Plus, when UNCF started, things were a lot worse than they are today, which is a scary fucking thought.

You have White History Month. It’s called All Of The Months Except February.

You have President’s Day, which has only been honoring a black man on any level since ‘09 and is still 43/44 (approximately 98%) about white people. You have Thanksgiving. Columbus Day. The Fourth of July.

The NAACP is necessary because of institutional racism that still exists in our society. NAAWP is not necessary because you can’t advance past controlling everything and being considered the default.

BET was created at a time when there were almost no black people on TV and the few there were played servants who shucked and jived. WET is called every other channel on TV.

    We have a  Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, a Black Chamber of 
    Commerce, and  then we just have the plain Chamber of Commerce.  
    Wonder who pays  for that?

Where are there minority Chambers of Commerce? I haven’t heard of them. And Chambers of Commerce are private sector organizations, not government organizations, so who gives a shit who pays for them? It’s not through our taxes as you so ignorantly intimated.

    If we had a  college fund that only gave white students scholarships  
    … You know we’d be  racists.  There are over 60 openly proclaimed  
    Black Colleges  in the   US , yet if there  were “White colleges” ..
    THAT would be a  racist college.

There’s no need for a whites-only scholarship. It’s not like a majority of white people are in poverty. When you have the money and power, you don’t need extra money and power because an effort is being made to share it with others.

HBCUs are not, as you imply, black-only colleges. They were founded when black people weren’t allowed in the white colleges (read: every college but those “black colleges” you mention). They allow anyone to apply, and on top of that, at some of them, white people can get minority scholarships!


    In the Million  Man March, you believed that you were marching  
    For your race  and rights. If we marched for our race and rights,  
    You would call  us racists.

What rights would you be marching for? You have always had all of the rights! From the time this country was founded, you have had every right.

    You are proud  to be black, brown, yellow and orange, and you’re  
    Not afraid to  announce it. But when we announce our white pride  …
    You call us  racists. 

Think about everyone you’ve heard yelling, “White pride!” Now think about everything else those people said surrounding that. Now consider why we might associate that phrase with racism.

    You rob us,  carjack us, and shoot at us. But, when a white police officer  
    Shoots a black  gang member or beats up a black drug-dealer running  
    From the law  and posing a threat to society  … You  call him a racist.  

Are you seriously implying that all minorities rob, carjack, deal drugs, and shoot white people all the time? ARE YOU MOTHERFUCKING KIDDING ME? ARE YOU GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING KIDDING ME?

    I am proud.  
    But, you call me  a racist.

No. You’re a racist, so I call you a racist.

    Why is it that  only whites can be racists?

Racism == power + privilege. White people, having the power and being considered the default (and thus having the privilege of always being represented, respected, and considered normal, beautiful, safe, etc.), are thus the people in this particular country who can be racist. Black people can be racially prejudiced, but the ability on an institutional, society-wide level to affect people through that prejudice is nonexistent.

    There  is nothing improper about this e-mail.  
    Let’s  see which of you are proud enough to send it on



There are many things improper about that e-mail. And I know who will be proud enough to send this bullshit on. They’re on the Stormfront forums. They watch Fox News. They have swastikas, Confederate flags, and the numbers 14 and 88 tattooed on them. They like to goose step and Skrewdriver is one of their favorite bands. They have countdown clocks on their computers for when Prussian Blue turns eighteen. They really like acid washed jeans and suspenders. Oxbloods are their jam. They totally missed the point of American History X. There is exactly one type of person that yells, “White pride!” at the top of their lungs, and I’m sure they loved that e-mail.

(via stfuracists)

Source: bowbeforeme

[image: venn diagram with two circles far from touching. Under the first labelled “what racism means” there is the text “the structural oppression of non-whites through government legislature, cultural “norms”, representation in the media etcetera”, while under the second labelled “what most people think it means” there is “a black girl made fun of me in middle school”].  aeraspais: To be honest, I dislike how often discussions of racism get derailed to explain to people that the dictionary definition is out-of-date and inadequate but I feel it is a conversation we need to have.  Racism will always be more complex than a “hatred or intolerance of another race or other races”.  It is a set of practices and subconscious behaviors that continuously teaches us to default to white, where “nude” is considered to be beige, and black folks and Hispanics have higher incarceration rates than whites for the similar crimes.  By saying this I am not undermining bullying you may have received in grade, middle or high school and I am also not saying people of color cannot be prejudiced against other races themselves.  All I am saying is we, as people of color, cannot be racist since we lack the power to full on oppress you.  It is truly that simple to grasp.
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[image: venn diagram with two circles far from touching. Under the first labelled “what racism means” there is the text “the structural oppression of non-whites through government legislature, cultural “norms”, representation in the media etcetera”, while under the second labelled “what most people think it means” there is “a black girl made fun of me in middle school”]. 

aeraspais:

To be honest, I dislike how often discussions of racism get derailed to explain to people that the dictionary definition is out-of-date and inadequate but I feel it is a conversation we need to have.  Racism will always be more complex than a “hatred or intolerance of another race or other races”.  It is a set of practices and subconscious behaviors that continuously teaches us to default to white, where “nude” is considered to be beige, and black folks and Hispanics have higher incarceration rates than whites for the similar crimes.  By saying this I am not undermining bullying you may have received in grade, middle or high school and I am also not saying people of color cannot be prejudiced against other races themselves.  All I am saying is we, as people of color, cannot be racist since we lack the power to full on oppress you.  It is truly that simple to grasp.

(via kadalkavithaigal)

weexist-weresist: Targeted and Entrapped: Manufacturing the Homegrown Threat NYU School of Law Report on Racial Profiling of Muslims in the United States The report identifies four trends among law enforcement that leads to to the surveillance of Muslims. The first is conflating Muslims with terrorists. The popular notion of terrorism has become inextricably linked to Muslims and Islam, due in no small part to a host of government policies targeting Muslims as potential terrorists. There is also evidence to suggest that many law enforcement agencies are trained with materials that construct Muslims as potential terrorists.   In addition, the construction of a terrorist “Other” has conflated notions of race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, gender, and political views, effectively racializing Islam, Muslims, and Muslim religious practice as radically threatening to U.S. national security interests. Muslim men have been constructed as particularly dangerous. “Muslim” and “Arab” are no longer discrete signifiers of religion or race but have been combined—by the media, popular conceptions, and the government’s own practices and policies—into a broader category of “Muslim looking people.” Muslim cultural and religious practices have also been marked in various ways as indicators of potential terrorist criminality. In turn, law enforcement officers target those who they perceive to look or act like Muslims in terrorism investigations, surveillance, and prosecutions. The second is promoting the myth of radicalization.  The 2007 NYPD report entitled “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat” has been pivotal in popularizing radicalization theories. Though the theories underlying the report have been criticized as “thinly sourced” and “reductionist,”they continue to enjoy support at the highest levels of government…. Equally troubling, the so-called markers of radicalization are over-determinate and focused on Muslim religious practice in fundamentally discriminatory ways. The King hearing is only the most recent manifestation of the government’s adoption of the radicalization theory. Elsewhere, President Barack Obama, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the National Counterterrorism Center, have all embraced the theory of radicalization. The third is preventative policing.  Rather than focusing on the policing of criminal activity, this approach facilitates the criminalization of those who “act Muslim,” either through their religious practice, attendance at a mosque, or their expression of political opinions critical of U.S. foreign policy. The use of informants appears to be a core feature of this model of policing terrorism. The last is permissive legal frameworks. The U.S. government has aggressively used material support statutes, conspiracy or attempt charges, or combinations thereof in terrorism prosecutions, resulting in the criminalization of a range of behaviors that do not seem to be indicative of any intent to commit a violent crime. Moreover, the DOJ’s guidance on racial profiling bans profiling on the basis of race and ethnicity, but does not explicitly ban profiling on the basis of religion or national origin, and creates loopholes for racial profiling in national security and border security contexts. Things to Take Away: We all know that when law enforcement looks for crime within a specific paradigm, they will find it and this inevitably turns into proof that a certain population is criminal. All Pakistanis must support terrorism since OBL was found in their backyard; all Muslims must be radical since I can give you a few examples of domestic terrorism; all blacks must be drug dealers since they are the ones filling the prisons.  But those of having to deal with these discourses on a day to day basis understand that no, actually more white people do/sell drugs but more black people go to jail because blackness is conflated with a regime of criminality. And now, this regime has been extended to the Muslims of America. The importance of this report is to show you that individual experiences are part of a larger framework and systemic pattern; and that your activism must address this larger framework as effectively as possible. A lot of silence and scattered conversations exist but putting them together and allowing communities to the make the connection between people who have been unfairly jailed, deported, etc will allow for better solidarity.  STFUIslamophobes made the important point today that we need to not draw Mohammad or w/e but start educating people on what islamophobia is and how it arises. So take to the streets, your schools, and communities, and go for it!
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weexist-weresist:

Targeted and Entrapped: Manufacturing the Homegrown Threat

NYU School of Law Report on Racial Profiling of Muslims in the United States

The report identifies four trends among law enforcement that leads to to the surveillance of Muslims.

The first is conflating Muslims with terrorists.

The popular notion of terrorism has become inextricably linked to Muslims and Islam, due in no small part to a host of government policies targeting Muslims as potential terrorists. There is also evidence to suggest that many law enforcement agencies are trained with materials that construct Muslims as potential terrorists.

 

In addition, the construction of a terrorist “Other” has conflated notions of race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, gender, and political views, effectively racializing Islam, Muslims, and Muslim religious practice as radically threatening to U.S. national security interests. Muslim men have been constructed as particularly dangerous.

“Muslim” and “Arab” are no longer discrete signifiers of religion or race but have been combined—by the media, popular conceptions, and the government’s own practices and policies—into a broader category of “Muslim looking people.” Muslim cultural and religious practices have also been marked in various ways as indicators of potential terrorist criminality.

In turn, law enforcement officers target those who they perceive to look or act like Muslims in terrorism investigations, surveillance, and prosecutions.

The second is promoting the myth of radicalization. 

The 2007 NYPD report entitled “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat” has been pivotal in popularizing radicalization theories. Though the theories underlying the report have been criticized as “thinly sourced” and “reductionist,”they continue to enjoy support at the highest levels of government…. Equally troubling, the so-called markers of radicalization are over-determinate and focused on Muslim religious practice in fundamentally discriminatory ways.

The King hearing is only the most recent manifestation of the government’s adoption of the radicalization theory. Elsewhere, President Barack Obama, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the National Counterterrorism Center, have all embraced the theory of radicalization.

The third is preventative policing. 

Rather than focusing on the policing of criminal activity, this approach facilitates the criminalization of those who “act Muslim,” either through their religious practice, attendance at a mosque, or their expression of political opinions critical of U.S. foreign policy.

The use of informants appears to be a core feature of this model of policing terrorism.

The last is permissive legal frameworks.

The U.S. government has aggressively used material support statutes, conspiracy or attempt charges, or combinations thereof in terrorism prosecutions, resulting in the criminalization of a range of behaviors that do not seem to be indicative of any intent to commit a violent crime.

Moreover, the DOJ’s guidance on racial profiling bans profiling on the basis of race and ethnicity, but does not explicitly ban profiling on the basis of religion or national origin, and creates loopholes for racial profiling in national security and border security contexts.

Things to Take Away:

We all know that when law enforcement looks for crime within a specific paradigm, they will find it and this inevitably turns into proof that a certain population is criminal. All Pakistanis must support terrorism since OBL was found in their backyard; all Muslims must be radical since I can give you a few examples of domestic terrorism; all blacks must be drug dealers since they are the ones filling the prisons. 

But those of having to deal with these discourses on a day to day basis understand that no, actually more white people do/sell drugs but more black people go to jail because blackness is conflated with a regime of criminality. And now, this regime has been extended to the Muslims of America.

The importance of this report is to show you that individual experiences are part of a larger framework and systemic pattern; and that your activism must address this larger framework as effectively as possible. A lot of silence and scattered conversations exist but putting them together and allowing communities to the make the connection between people who have been unfairly jailed, deported, etc will allow for better solidarity. 

STFUIslamophobes made the important point today that we need to not draw Mohammad or w/e but start educating people on what islamophobia is and how it arises. So take to the streets, your schools, and communities, and go for it!

marcharsealasmontanas:

PxC - Spot electoral. (by InmigracionVerdades)

Soon there will be elections in my country and this is a spot for a party called PxC (Platform for Catalonia) which motto is “Primer els de casa” (first us or the ones who were born in this country come first). I think you can understand more or less what it’s about whitout subs right? It makes me sick that there’s people who believes this and will vote for this bigots… Ther are so many wrong things in this, I don’t even know where to start…

This is unbelievable.

When we were working with the International Women’s Day, we were ‘invited’ to work, it wasn’t as if we as black women, as a group that they sought to invite, were part of that whole movement. We were something outside of the movement, so working inside it meant we had to say ‘look, you can’t do this, we are women, women that are connected to women all over the world. In order to have a real women’s movement, you have to work altogether as women. You can’t keep that structure where you control what goes and we just fill in the gaps.’

Grace Channer, from Sisters in the Struggle

Sounds like some of the problems with Slutwalk to me.

All the institutions have been framed in a monocultural framework. They’ve been set up by the British hundreds of years ago, these are the institutions which have been shaped in a way which captures the sentiments, the values, the norms of mainstream society.


Despite the fact that native people have been here eons and eons ago, they are not shaping any institution. They are left out of that by virtue of racism. And then along, if you look again, the Chinese who are here who built the railroad, they haven’t shaped any institution. Their norms, their values are not intricately tied into any one of these institutions.


How can you continue to have these dinosaurs keeping people out of inputting their values and their customs, it runs counter to this whole notion of multiculturalism… it runs contrary to that whole direction of government policy saying that there is ‘diversity’. Diversity, but where does that diversity play itself out?

Akua Benjamin, Sisters in the Struggle