bigfatgorillaoutlet

[bigfatgorillaoutlet]

i guess i got some shit to say

On May 25, 2020, a 46 year old black man has been murdered for being the suspect of a 20 counterfeit bill. George was put on the ground by a police officer who put his foot on his neck for 7 minutes straight and was announced dead shortly after.

This has been topic that every single person all around the world is talking about, whether you like it or not, the murder of George Floyd is every hard to ignore. It has put many people to come to realize that racism all over the world is still happening.

I have chosen to write about this subject because i have been feeling this extreme urge to write about it, I would like to share the things that i’ve learned through out the years of being a privileged white person. I would also like to acknowledge that i am a 19 year old girl who has never experienced racism what so ever.

I am very aware of the fact that i am only responsible for my own behavior, i can’t change anyone, i can only try to inform people and inspire them. I accept that. I’m writing this because i have no expectations and i am doing this because i feel like it’s my duty to do it, not because i want results. As a white person i feel like it's my duty to do this because clearly, black people have had enough. Black people are tired of trying to explain these issues to us and i feel like it's our duty as white people to speak up and do it for them. It is our job to educate our white brothers and sisters. 

I am aware that awareness is an unstoppable progress. Sometimes, people just lay in bed and wake up one day and have the urgue to do better. I am very aware that people have to make a change about this subject by themselves and i have no power to make them change.

I am also aware that a real racist, knows very well that he or she is a racist and think that that’s fine. I have no intention to talk to those people, i have way more interest in talking to people who want to tell me their side of the story and is open to see things in another perspective, i wanna talk to people who want to do a peaceful discussion with me. But if you are a person, that in 2020, still thinks that it’s okay to use the N word as a white person, than i think by now you should have come to realize that that’s not okay and i suggest you to stop reading.  However, if you are not one of those people but do have questions about why people are rioting because of George Floyd, why reverse racism does not exist (but racism does!) and how racism is defenitly still very active in The Netherlands, please hear me out.

 What is happening in America right now, and who are these rioters?

As i informed you at the beginning of my paper, the United States of America has been put under the eye for the whole world to see. On Tuesday the 26th of May a video came out of a white police officer called Derek Chauvin arresting George Flody, a 46 year old black man, for being accused of buying sigarettes with a 20 dollar counterfeit bill. Mr. Chauvin was kneeling on the back of mr. Floyd his neck while he was pleeding for his life and gasps his final breathes on this planet. On the video you can see that there is a big crowd around the officer telling him to stop. ‘’’He is not moving!’’ a man yells, but mr. Chauvin continues with looking away from the camera and looking down at mr. Floyd while he takes his life away. Mr. Floyd his death has triggered major protests in the United States and has sparked rage everywhere the country. But why the rage?

Mr. Chauvin has faced charges and is conficted with third degree murder. Third degree murder is essentially depraved heart/implied malice murder, a third degree murder is UNINTENIONAL killing resulting from extreme reckless conduct that manifest a wanton disregard for human life.

If you are a bit like me and saw the video of mr. Floyd being murdered, this was clearly not unintentional. Mr. Chauvin is putting his knee on the neck of mr. Floyd, i think it’s a well known fact that if you put a heavy subject on someone else their neck, they will suffocate. Not only was this move highly unneccessary, but this move is banned by most police departments. The police apartment of Minneapolis policies states that an officer can only do this if someone is ‘’actively resisting’’. George Floyd was not actively resisting, he was faced down, hand cuffed and being murdered. So why did the police officer only get 3rd degree murder? Could the prosection have charged Chauvin for intentional murder? Probably. George died at 8:24 p.m. and at 8:27 pm is when mr. Chauvin took his knee off mr. Floyd his neck. They were told to check his pulse after he stopped moving, but they still kept on going for 3 more minutes. This was not unintenional killing.

Now, with all of this information i hope you have an idea of why people are protesting against Chauvin his case. This has not been the first time that a case like this has happened in the United Sates. Since 2015, over 1,200 black people have been killed by the police. Black people are 13% of the US population but make up for 23% of the police killings that have found place in the United States. Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman, who announced the charges against Chauvin, acknowledged the difficulty of bringing charges against police officers and has said that ‘’This is by are the fastest we have ever charged an police officer.’’ It has been made very clear to me, that the United States does not threat their black citizens equally. In fact, they choose to murder them.

A lot of US citizens have chosen to peacefully demonstrate, but there have also been people that choose to riot and start looting. Do i agree with rioting and looting? Absolutely not. Do i think that they gain something by destroying innocent stores like Target and Mac donalds? Absolutely not, in fact people that are rioting are taking a big risk to get shot by a rubber bullet, or getting tear gassed. So why are they doing it? How does one person get so mad that they just start destroying everything in their surroundings? I think with all the context i gave you earlier, you might have guessed where i am going to. The awnser is: years, and years, and years, of oppression. The United States has gone from slavery, to Jim Crow, to the civil rights act and lets not forget about the prison summary. Black people in the United States have been treaten unequally throughout their whole lives. The prison summary in America is an continuation from the compulsion labour which was first called slavery and now takes place formulated as ‘’You are smoking a joint on the street’’ since smoking a joint is why the majority of black men are prisoned in the United States.

The people who are rioting and looting have had enough. White people need to understand the emotional ties that black people have been making with eachother thorugh out history. Historically seen they have been sepirated from eachother, and through out time, that has made an huge connection between them. If a black woman from Amsterdam, goes on an holiday to Minneapolis, it could have been her. The fact that she is a Dutch citizen, wouldn’t have mattered at all, She is black. She is a target. It could have been her.

 He called me a stiff white girl, why isn’t that racist?

Ah, reverse racism. I can not explain how many times i have had this discussion with my fellow white friends. ‘’Why isn’t it racist to call out white privilige?’’ ‘’He rejected me because i was a white girl’’ ‘’I wasn’t able to join their group because i was white’’ These are one of the many sentences i have been told after i tried to explain people that reverse racism is not a real thing. Racism can not go in reverse. Why? Because racism is an opressive system in a system of disadvantages that black and brown people do not benefit from. I would call reverse racism similar to oppression. Oppression is a special kind of problem, it is very restricting and it has higharicle and power behind it. Its a top down system.

If a black person says something bad about a white person, as harmful it may be, its NOT RACISM, even if the insult is race based. It’s not racism. Why? Because we made the systematic uniform of automatic social power influence. We as white people have built this system. A black person calling you out on your white privilege is not racist. Yes, these words have an emotional impact, but you are not losing anything because of it. You are privileged, and you can just move pass it. But if you insult a black person because of their race, they can’t move pass it. Because if a white person insults a black person because of their race, that would go along with the system that was build in this country called racism. Whether you like it or not, Racism is an insidious cultural disease. It is so insidious that it doesn’t care if you are a white person that likes black people, it is still going to find a way to infect how you deal with people who do not share your skin color.

 The reality of racism its that its very deep in the spain of society. It goes way further than hateful comments. Yes, racist slurs about skin, hair, accent, eyes and religion play a big part in it. And yes, white people have the ability to feel pain from an insult. But when white people get insulted, that comes from other social problems. It comes from bullying, poverty, sexism, ignorance or pessinism, but it’s not racist. Racism is systematic. There is no experience in being a white person as in being a person of color if you’re talking about racial identity. How hurtful it may be ‘’The cool black kids do not like me’’ is not proof of racial oppression. White people don’t have to worry in their day to day life about being white. White people do not have to deal with teachers expecting low expectations because of their race, White people do not have to deal with being closely followed by security guards or store clerks at a store or mall because of their race. White people do not have to deal with being reject at a job because of their last name. White people do not have to deal with being murdered by a police officer just because they were accused of using a counterfeit 20 dollar bill. Yes, some white people need to think about how they can avoid discrimination based of their gender, sexuality, religion, their social economical status or their disability, but it is not because they are white. And if you only get defensive about these situations whenever there is a political discussion about it, you are very likely to not have experienced racism.  If you only find it neccessary to talk about how mean a black man has been to you when racism is named in the conversation, you have not experienced racism.

It is only when you have experienced racism when your whole race has competely been ignored, or the other way around, has been put in extreme spotlight and has been made fun of in daily conversations and has been put in negative daylight in the media. If you haven’t experienced this, you have not experienced racism. Rerverse racism does not exist because i still have to explain what racism is, or don’t explain what it is and listen to another story about how Lucy got bullied for wearing braces in 5th grade.

 Black pete is a childs best friend!

Black pete. You have probably heard about it, and if not, you’re in for a treat! At the start of the nineteenth century dutch people have created a feastday called Sinterklaas. Sinterklaar is an legandary figure based on Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of children. The feast day takes place on the 6th of December. Sinterklaas (a white, dressed rich, man btw) enters the country with all his employees called black petes. Every year white people paint themselves black, overdraw their lips with red lipstick to make their lips appear bigger, put on a black curly wig, serve Sinterklaas and call it a day. Black pete is framed as a nice man who gives presents to little kids. Most Dutch people will have an underlying connection with black pete, he is after all the man that gave you little presents when you were only 6 years old.

Unfortonately, not everyone experienced black pete as a fun loving man. Black pete often triggers a lot of bad memories for people of color, they often can’t seem to find the pleasure out of it that most dutch people can. But why?

The thing with black pete is that it’s straight up black face. Black pete descends from slavery, because the first book of Sinterklaas came out in 1850, But slavery in The Netherlands only ended in 1863. Black pete was a slave. People would dress up to make fun of black people and their stereotypical features such as cruly hair, big lips, and sometimes even their accent. Black pete is black face, and not just because they are painted black, they also have the cruly hair, fat lips and big gold earrings.

The whole world is shocked about this tradition and has critized the Netherlands for still celebrating this feastday because they are also of the opinion that black pete is black face. So why do the Netherlands keep celebrating it? Well, i think it’s because most people refuse to let go of this holiday because of their own positive experiences with black pete. Black pete was the funny man who cllimbed on the rooftop of your school. He threw around cookies and gave you presents. Black pete is our tradition, black pete is a part of our indenitity. How dare they, the lowest group in our society, asks us superior dutch people, to change OUR tradition!?

Its either that, or dutch people are very naive and are suffering from a lack of empathy. But racism can not be allowed just because of lack of empathy. It’s a fact that black people are disadvantged in our society. And if you are already in the minority of our society, have less privileges because of your skin color and on top of that you also get made fun of because of your skin color in your OWN country? That’s just not how it works.

Correct me if i’m wrong, but last time i checked dutch people didn’t get threatend to be kidnapped to another continent where they were put on etates where they needed to start working while they had a chance of getting raped by their owners and would simply just not get treated as humans. Dutch people didn’t get torn apart from their families simply because they were dutch. So who are we to say, that we don’t experience black pete as racism? Ofcourse we didn’t! (Luckily so, i wouldn’t wish that to anyone). The fact that the WHOLE world can see this, but the Netherlands can’t is simply because they don’t want to, i find that to be ignorant. But this feastday proves more than anything, that ignorance is bliss.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vksEJR9EPQ8

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/george-floyd-investigation.html

https://www.parool.nl/columns-opinie/de-wereld-van-sylvana-simons~b3d390d2/?referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dsylvana%2Bsimons%2Bparool%2Bstuk%26form%3DEDGEAR%26qs%3DPF%26cvid%3D51846abf1b5346aebab4f9840856c5a1%26cc%3DNL%26setlang%3Dnl-NL%26elv%3DAY3%2521uAY7tbNNZGZ2yiGNjfMm48FCyJptxjOJLsv3Limi4mjW0KY10wsVvPAfZmAEl1i0Ti7Kk%2521gRC15lofm13ZqHRyTp4gWPgAj0BJwqu8yJ%26plvar%3D0%26PC%3DLCTS

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/racism-african-americans-quiz.html

https://npofocus.nl/artikel/7472/waar-komt-zwarte-piet-vandaan-

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackface