#ethnic minority communities

[crazycatsiren]

Even in Ye Olden Days if you wanted to learn a new skill, you wouldn't just grab a stranger off the sidewalk and demand they educate you.

Especially if you're part of a particular minority group, many people treat your existence as an invitation to ask invasive questions or act as an ambassador. Not everyone is qualified to answer your question. Not everyone is willing to take on the time/energy/emotional burden. It's just rude for someone to assume all that of complete strangers. When it's multiple people doing it, it gets dehumanizing.

This, from @will-o-the-witch, really hits home hard. Because it's so very true.

When you're of an ethnic minority, damned if you do and damned if you don't. If you give an answer and provide the information as requested, often times it's not good enough, and people will go ahead and ask the next white gentile the exact same question anyway, because your answer is not one that they like/want. If you don't want to answer, don't have an answer, don't feel like answering, or aren't comfortable answering, often times people will act like you owe them an education, as if we're all robots who will just come when called and happily work for free.

Do y'all actually respect us? Think of us as real people even? Or do we exist on social media to be centers of free exotic and cool information for the taking in y'all's minds? Because in real life, there are research interns and assistants who actually get paid to do this kind of work. We aren't on the internet to be free labors for the picking.

Like, who the fuck do you think you are even, that you should think you're entitled to our time.

[queerism1969]

[kjzx]

An important thing to remember as an artist that started out drawing characters crudely and then started learning the fundamentals, at first your art will not look nice.

At first, drawing faces and bodies in different positions will make your characters look weird, then poor perspective will make your characters look weird, and finally when all the kinda things I mentioned above will be dealt with, just the hype of finally knowing how to draw anatomy will bite you in the ass because you can do all these things, you can draw them correctly or close to that, but whether that's figure drawing knowledge gaps, or awkwards poses/composition, or just not a very harmonious combination of realism and stylization in facial features or in general, but your before and after pictures might get this look of "clear objective technical improvement but many would consider it a downgrade"

That's a very common thing. I used to be in this before/after art community, and it was so toxic it was a meme within the community that no matter how much you've improved there will be people that will say that the before is better. There's a seed of truth to these words though, what they fundamentally get wrong is this implication that you "ruined your art"

That's a big example of why you shouldn't listen to non-art people for art advice. Keep going. You're closer to your art dreams than you ever were, you just need to look into all these things like the remaining knowledge gaps or personality to your art you might've lost as you were on your anatomy grind.

Keep creating, keep looking at art that inspires you and try to think of how to make yourself like your art better. Don't get stuck on it, if it begins being unfun, please do take a breather. Also, none of that is objective, people will still prefer things different to what you find beautiful. It's alright, create what you like, that's what this post is about. If you don't wanna, don't focus on aesthetics, just the process of creating art is fun and will eventually get you in the right place, that's what I do, I just occasionally throw in things I like and sometimes they work. Take care.

These are my current thoughts on the topic. I wouldn't take them too close to heart, this is just a blogging site and I'm blogin 👍

[doikayt]

I’m a Jew and an atheist separately and at once fwiw. My Jewishness is ethnic, cultural, immutable. My atheism is ideological. The fact that I am an atheist isn’t really much inflected by the fact that I’m a Jew (other than to say Jewishness makes atheism easier lol), so stating “jews” and “atheists” as if they are two diametrically opposed categories makes me uncomfortable.

[yagikidd57]

[thecommunalfoolboy]

A weird part of being a minority in school that I’ve never heard anyone else mention is everyone talking about how much they love a teacher for being chill and funny and whatever while you’re just sitting there trying to be like ah yes ofc said teacher definitely does not try to withhold disability rights from me nor do they ever ask me wildly inappropriate questions about being trans

[syssyadmin]

i hate you legalization efforts that position the newly-official drug market as being divided strictly between “medical use”, which still involves needing a doctor to sign a note saying you’re allowed to self-medicate with it, and “recreational use” in which a doctor has not signed a note and therefore you must be taking a drug purely for enjoyment and as such should be treated by the law as the least charitable interpretation of said person, therefore being subject to extremely high taxes and regulatory restrictions. like. i don’t think i’ve ever met a single self-identified stoner who didn’t openly talk about how they are in essence self-medicating but sure this dichotomy totally makes sense (or at least, $$$)

[dykesynthezoid]

Every time someone says “some historians and anthropologists believe (x) culture may have once been a matriarchy” and by matriarchy they mean women were just Kind Of Important. If men aren’t oppressed I don’t wanna hear it

[pr0ud0fmyroots]

Breaking Asian stereotypes is great. But we need to talk about the repercussions. In high school I deliberately became more loud & assertive because I was sick of being cast aside as just another ‘quiet, nerdy Asian’. And that got me a lot of hate. I was othered, even more so than before. So I was silent again because it was easier than having a target on my back. Easier than being seen as a threat. I’ll find my voice again one day, but later. Much later.

[crazycatsiren]

The thing is, a person who's not a part of a marginalized group making a stand with "hey this thing is racist/antisemitic/ableist/queerphobic/fatphobic/xenophobic, etc. so don't do this thing" in the face of bigotry isn't "speaking for" a marginalized group.

What do we expect our allies to do? Never speak up to defend us? Never make it known that they have our backs?

Yes, we want our voices amplified. But I don't see how that can be accomplished through silence.

[ashton-slashton]

Okay yeah I know this is a really weird and silly LoTR hill to die on because I really just have a big dumb crush, but I am very much on the team of "Gríma Wormtongue should have lived, because in BOTH adaptations, he was offered mercy after suffering unspeakable cruelties, and it is absolutely deplorable that he was robbed of that, ESPECIALLY in the films, by a person who does not value mortal life in the same way a mortal would, and so takes it without a second thought."

He deserved better and we all know it.

[3piox]

i start writing something explaining the jedi through the lens of the fables comics and the sopranos and realize the target audience of such a post is probably very, very limited

[weepingfireflies]

People & countries mentioned in the thread:

DR Congo - M23, Cobalt

Darfur, Sudan - International Criminal Court, CNN, BBC (Overview); Twitter Explanation on Sudan

Tigray - Human Rights Watch (Ethnic Cleansing Report)

the Sámi people - IWGIA, Euronews

Hawai'i - IWGIA

Syria - Amnesty International

Kashmir- Amnesty Summary (PDF), Wikipedia (Jammu and Kashmir), Human Rights Watch (2022)

Iran - Human Rights Watch, Morality Police (Mahsa/Jina Amini - Al Jazeera, Wikipedia)

Uyghurs - Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) Q&A, Wikipedia, Al Jazeera, UN Report

Tibetans - SaveTibet.org, United Nations

Yazidi people - Wikipedia, United Nations

West Papua - Free West Papua, Genocide Watch

Yemen - Human Rights Watch (Saudi border guards kill migrants), Carrd

Sri Lanka (Tamils) - Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch

Afghans in Pakistan - Al Jazeera, NPR

Ongoing Edits: more from the notes / me

Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh/Azerbaijan (Artsakh) - Global Conflict Tracker ("Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict"), Council on Foreign Relations, Human Rights Watch (Azerbaijan overview), Armenian Food Bank

Baháʼís in Iran - Bahá'í International Community, Amnesty, Wikipedia, Minority Rights Group International

Kafala System in the Middle East - Council on Foreign Relations, Migrant Rights

Rohingya - Human Rights Watch, UNHCR, Al Jazeera, UNICEF

Montagnards (Vietnam Highlands) - World Without Genocide, Montagnard Human Rights Organization (MHRO), VOA News

Ukraine - Human Rights Watch (April 2022), Support Ukraine Now (SUN), Ukraine Website, Schools & Education (HRW), Dnieper River advancement (Nov. 15, 2023 - Ap News)

Reblogs with Links / From Others

Indigenous Ppl of Canada, Cambodia, Mexico, Colombia

Libya

Armenia Reblog 1, Armenia Reblog 2

Armenia, Ukraine, Central African Republic, Indigenous Americans, Black ppl (US)

Rohingya (Myanmar)

More Hawai'i Links from @sageisnazty - Ka Lahui Hawaii, Nation of Hawai'i on Soverignty, Rejected Apology Resolution

From @rodeodeparis: Assyrian Policy Institute, Free Yezidi

From @is-this-a-cool-url: North American Manipur Tribal Association (NAMTA)

From @dougielombax & compiled by @azhdakha: Assyrians & Yazidis

West Sahara conflict

Last Updated: Feb. 19th, 2024 (If I missed smth before this, feel free to @ me to add it)

[languagexs]

Translating Bajuni Language: Exploring the Fascinating Bajuni People of Kenya and Somalia and Bajuni Islands

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