#growing up in a poc immigrant neighborhood and going to public school where i was one of the few white ppl

[soldier-poet-king]

I am once again sad and pining and yearning and obsessed with my own loneliness and I'm beating myself over the head with a rolled up newspaper but it's not HELPING

Emotionally, it's a Monday. AND I can't stop skin picking. AND I encountered some incredibly racist shit at work today (like this record group is from 1992 it shouldn't be THIS BAD HOLY SHIT LITERAL ADULTS willingly go on record saying this shit)

[3aris]

“nothing will work unless you do” - Maya Angelou

BLACK LIVES MATTER

WE KNOW ALL LIVES MATTER

BUT RIGHT NOW BLACK LIVES ARE THE ONES IN DANGER!

RACISM:

a complex system of beliefs and institutions that elevates whites at the expense of non-whites.

we all exist in and benefit from this system, whether we notice it or not.

WHITE PEOPLE CANNOT EXPERIENCE RACISM!

- discrimination is not racism

- our society prioritizes and caters to the experiences and benefits of white people. 

- white people hold the power in society. the ones in power cannot be the victims

* IT’S A PRIVILEGE TO EDUCATE YOURSELF ON RACISM INSTEAD OF EXPERIENCING IT *

HOW THE F*CK DOES RACISM STILL EXIST? [@cicelyblaincolsulting]

1. Racism Is Upheld By:

- Systems (media, education, law, healthcare...)

- History (our society is informed by centuries-old habit, biases, & disparities)

- Privilege (difficult to notice, address, and sacrifice. as long as one group benefits from the oppression of another, racism will still exist)

- Micro-Aggressions (everyday slights, comments, & actions uphold racist power structures)

2.The Formation Of Anti-Blackness

- Capitalism (Black bodies have been used as the means of production (worker labor, tools, machinery) to create wealth for Europeans.)

- Slavery (Black people were stripped of autonomy, citizenship, rights, and treated as objects for over 300 years)

- Colonialism (the land we occupy was stolen from indigineous peoples and continues to be pillaged for raw material, natural resources, and human capital for white gain first and foremost.

3. EVEN THE SMALLEST ACTS OF RACISM UPHOLD DOMINANT POWER STRUCTURES

4. Racism Is An Iceberg

- Tip / Visible Part (KKK, neo-nazis, police brutality, racial slurs, hate crimes)

- Majority / Hidden Part (all lives matter, your English is so good, you’re so pretty for a Black girl, what about Black on Black crime, can I touch your hair, where are you really from?)

ANTI-RACISM:

the active process of identifying and eliminating racism by changing systems, policies, practices, and attitudes in order to redistribute and share power. [NAC International Perspectives: Women and Global Solidarity]

WHITE PRIVILEGE:

white privilege doesn’t mean your life hasn’t been hard, it means that the color of your skin isn’t one of the things making it harder

WHAT’S WRONG WITH POLICE [@leftnortheast]

1. Origins of Police in America

- slave patrols of armed white men to enforce slavery & chase down runaway slaves

- after slavery, these same patrols continued to enforce segregation & reinforce violence against Black ppl perpetrated by the KKK

- during the 19th century, the ultra-rich business owners relied on police to stop workers and immigrants from organizing labor unions

- LA’s “thin blue line” enforced segregation in the 1950s. look up “Black Wall Street”

- HISTORICALLY THE MAIN FUNCTION OF THE POLICE IS TO PROTECT WEALTH & ASSETS BY PRESERVING INSTITUTIONAL RACISM

2. Police Today

- when police commit crimes, the investigations are performed by the police themselves (union officials & internal affairs departments)

- only 33% of investigations end in police being convicted, compared to 68% in general pop.

- at least 40% of police families have experienced domestic violence, compared to 10% in the general population

3. ACAB: What It Means

- all cops are bastards

- it does NOT mean that individual cops are incapable of doing good things, but that the institution of policing is harmful and beyond saving

- the laws that “good” cops enforce work to uphold a harmful status quo that keeps working class and POC socially disadvantaged. therefore, there are no “good” cops

- EX: the three other officers who stood and watched Derek Chauvin kill George Floyd. they may be “good” because they didn’t kill Floyd, but they did nothing to prevent Chauvin from doing so.

THINGS TO DO INSTEAD OF CALLING THE COPS [@freedomtothrive]

1. Don’t Feel Obligated To Defend Property

- is someone being actively hurt or endangered by property “theft” or damage?

- if “no,” let it be

2. If Something Of Yours Is Stolen...

- consider going to the police station instead of bringing cops into your community, you may be inadvertently putting someone art risk by calling the cops

3. If You See Someone Exhibiting “Odd” Behavior...

- don’t assume they are intoxicated

- ask if they are ok, if they have a medical condition, and if they need help

4. If You See Someone Pulled Over With Car Trouble...

- stop & ask if they need help or if you can call a tow truck for them

- calling police may result in unnecessary ticketing, target undocumented ppl, etc.

5. Keep A Contact List Of Community Resources

- EX: suicide hotlines, mental health assistance, etc.

- ppl with mental illnesses are 16x more likely to be killed by police

6. Check Your Impulse To Call The Police On “Suspicious” People

- is their race, gender, ethnicity, class, or housing situation influencing your action?

- calling the cops on such people can be death sentences (EX: Trayvon Martin)

HOW WILL WE STAY SAFE WITHOUT POLICE? [@mpd_150] [@wretched_flowers_]

1. Community Members

- mental health service providers, social workers, victim/survivor advocates, religious leaders, neighbors & friends need to look out for one another

- not armed strangers with guns who likely don’t live in the communities they patrol (police)

- society expects police to do too much: violent crimes, traffic stops, chasing loose dogs, etc.

2. What About Violence?

- crime isn’t random, it happens because ppl are unable to meet their needs  EX: money, food, rent, etc.

- this problem can be solved with an emphasis on jobs, education, community centers, mental health resources.

- cops don’t prevent violence, they invite it through constant violent disruption of our communities

3. It’s Not Impossible

- look at the abolition of slavery, the 40hr work week, etc. those were accomplished through gradual progress

- redirect funds away from the police department toward those community-based alternatives listed above. LOOK UP HOW MUCH YOUR CITY / STATE SPENDS ON POLICING.

14 WAYS WHITE PPL CAN MAKE LIFE LESS FRUSTRATING FOR p.o.c. [@privtoprog]

1. trust / listen to POC assessment of a situation

2. don’t assume all POC have same views

3. don’t guess / assume ppl’s race

4. read & share articles relating to daily POC experiences

5. just because you have a POC friend / relative / partner doesn’t mean you can’t be racist. if anything, it means you should be more critical of your actions / words & how they affect those around you

6. don’t play devil’s advocate on race conversations. JUST. LISTEN.

7. understand that America has what it has because it stole land from indigenous people and stole people from Africa to build America

8. care about race on the other 364 days that aren’t MLK Day

9. don’t assume you know what it’s like to experience racism. you don’t & can’t. that’s the point.

10. nothing in your life has been untouched by your whiteness. everything you have would have been harder to come by if you had not been born white.

11. don’t get defensive when someone calls you out on racism, be grateful. it’s a learning moment.

12. move past white guilt. guilt it’s unproductive. just BE BETTER.

13. fighting racism isn’t about you. it’s about liberating POC from a racist world / system.

14. being an ALLY is a verb, not a noun. you can’t be an ally just because you say you are. actions are louder than words.

WHAT WHITE PPL CAN DO OVER TIME [@prettydecent]

1. Research & Learn In Public

- identify, name, & challenge the norms, patterns, traditions, structures,and institutions that keep racism & white supremacy in place

- TALK TO & EDUCATE OTHER WHITE PEOPLE. it’s YOUR job, not POC, to teach white ppl how to fight racism

- let people you care about know this is something you care about

2. Open Your Eyes To Anti-Blackness

- there are no race-neutral spaces, “colorblindness” does not exist.

- Anti-Blackness is the way in which Black ppl have been targeted & stripped of their humanity

- pay attention to CODED LANGUAGE. what do we mean by “good” neighborhoods & “good” schools?

- who starts trends? who gets credit for them? EX: rock & roll

3. Pay Attention To Your White Experience

- we will never full understand Black ppl’s experiences

- look at how your whiteness has impacted your life: encounters with police, airport security? job interviews?

- what are you “good at” and how might your race have affected that?

- white experiences are the social “default,” EX: “Is The Country Ready For Its First White President?”

4. Speak Up & Argue With White People

- silence is a privilege & acts in directly upholding the system of white supremacy

- look at how movies, TV, and other media treats Black and POC, and call it out when you see it.

- hold other white ppl accountable, THERE IS NO GROWTH WITHOUT DISCOMFORT. we make mistakes but that does not mean we can’t learn & grow from them.

HOW TO TALK TO YOUR FAMILY ABOUT RACISM [@jenerous]

1. Intent & Impact

- white ppl say that we don’t INTEND to be racist.

- intent doesn’t matter if the IMPACT of our actions harms someone and/or upholds a racist system

2. Watch Your Tone

- we don’t get to tell Black ppl how to talk about their own oppression (“tone policing”)

- when we talk to other white ppl about race, we need to speak in a way that best conveys the information, feelings aside

3. Tell Stories Of Your Own Privilege

- tell your family members a specific way your white privilege has protected you

- this is also a great opportunity for you to reflect on & better understand your own privilege

- WE LEARN BY TEACHING

4. Share Some Of Your Own F*ck Ups

- admitting you’ve been wrong before helps normalize personal growth

- makes it easier for your family to reflect on their own failures & move on

- vulnerability is strength

5. Make It Okay To Ask Questions

- ask your family if they have questions about racism

- this may bring up stuff you don’t know either, a great opportunity to learn together!

6. Keep Asking “Why Do You Think That Is?”

- find a race-related statistic that you both agree on (EX: “Black ppl are jailed for weed more than white ppl are”)

- ask your family member why they think that statistic is true until there’s no answer that makes sense besides “racism”

7. Plant A Seed Of Doubt

- unlearning a racist system means flipping everything we know on its head.

- that requires small steps, such as getting your family members to question their existing logic around ONE topic (Black hair, cultural appropriation, affirmative action, etc.)

- when they say “hmm... i never thought about that,” you’re making progress!

8. Commit To The Idea That It Is Possible To Change Someone’s Mind

- your own anti-racism journey is proof!

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF [@is_siigii]

1. Who taught you about race & culture?

2. What can you do to support POC in your community?

3. What are you committed to doing outside of social media to fight racism?

4. How do you behave when you are confronted with racist behavior?

5. What do you want to learn more about?

6. What information could you teach people?

7. In what ways have you ignored this behavior in the past?

8. Why is it important for everyone to work toward ending this injustice?

9. How can you use anti-racist knowledge to change & progress?

10. Do you owe anyone an apology?

11. How do you handle conflicts?

[photogracyblog]

A Space That Wasn’t Made for Me (My Op-Ed for the Tufts Observer)

I am solely speaking about my experience as a queer, Persian man. I do not claim to understand or hope to speak for anybody else but myself. My experiences have been socialized by the immediate environment in which I was raised, and I fully realize how I have historically been complicit and involved in some of the systems and organizations that I criticize in this piece. My effort to improve as a person and to hold myself accountable for my actions is one that is not devoid of mistakes.

During recess one day in middle school, one of the coolest kids in my class, an attractive White male, asked me who some of my favorite singers were. Anxious to make a good impression, I thought of the Whitest shit I could come up with to please him: Red Hot Chili Peppers, Kurt Cobain, and Dave Matthews Band. I think I threw in Lil Wayne as well, because I have found that many White boys love reaffirming their “hipness” by admiring and “identifying” with Black rappers.

I grew up in a predominantly White, affluent neighborhood and attended a “prestigious” prep school in the greater Boston area. I quickly learned to value White activities like theater and tennis, both of which I really enjoyed, but all the while felt excluded from socially. I began to consider White, muscular men with rigid jawlines and blue eyes to be the epitome of attraction and beauty, shaping the way I began to look at myself in the mirror, and later contributing to the ways that I would begin to modify my body.

At the same time, my experiences assimilating to various aspects of White culture seemed to juxtapose with my identity as an Iranian-American. My parents emigrated from Iran to France and finally settled in Brookline, MA. I grew up in a house with Persian art, poetry, and music. I ate home-cooked Persian food every night, spoke Farsi with my family, and celebrated being Iranian by attempting to recognize the social implications that I thought being Iranian would mean.

Growing up, I always imagined that I would experience a universal bond with other Persians. I believed that the experiences we seemed to face as a community would transcend our often divisive, intersectional identities; however, I didn’t recognize how difficult it would be to navigate my Persian-ness as a queer man. I didn’t want to acknowledge the deeply rooted masculinity and patriarchal structure embedded within Persian culture that doesn’t give space to those with divergent and non-normative identities—specifically, queerness.

Identifying as gay, then eventually developing my sexuality to fit my own definition of queer, became an aspect of my identity that began to deteriorate the bond that I had tried to sustain between the Iranian community and myself. Once I began to realize how difficult it would be to find any space where my queerness and race could interact, I began to feel a deep sense of resentment towards myself. Never feeling quite Persian enough became a recurring sentiment at events, vacations, and dinners with my extended family. I found that my queerness seemed to dissuade my desire to “feel” Iranian by participating in the hyper-masculine activities and homophobic discourse that is rampant within many Persian social contexts that I have experienced.

As I sought to develop my identity further in college, something about associating myself as brown and not specifically as Persian began to muddle my identity and prevent me from characterizing my experiences as separate or unique. I don’t know what it feels like to be Latino. I do not identify as South Asian, nor do I consider myself an Arab—and so to experience struggle through the lens of an identity that cannot be located has made me feel that my brownness will not, and cannot, find a space to exist freely. Whether it is being misidentified or having my racial identity questioned, I have developed an uncomfortable relationship with claiming, accepting, and embracing being Iranian.

Whenever people used to ask about my ethnicity, I always responded by saying, “I’m Iranian.” Recently, however, I have begun to use the ethnic origin of my identity as a signifier of the unique culture that I ascribe myself with. Identifying and introducing myself as Persian marks an important and unique ethnic exclamation that has reaffirmed my desire to separate myself from other Middle Eastern and Arab cultures. (Contrary to popular belief, Persians are not ethnically Arab.)

Growing up and hearing Iran described as a threatening or evil country also made me uncomfortable publically identifying as Iranian. The inability for people in this country to disassociate Iran’s government from its people created this self-destructive pattern for me to constantly prove myself as a good Iranian, or disassociate from my racial background altogether. Today, I still find it terribly difficult navigating being Iranian given the current immigration ban that Trump’s administration has brought forth. Beyond the fallacy that the nations listed in the ban have contributed to acts of terror in the US (not a single one has), I also find it disheartening to hear Iran constantly being referred to under a false pretense of danger, terror, and otherness.

Despite the many “diverse” spaces at Tufts that foster important discussions for people of color, queer and trans folk, and women of color, I have found that, in order to join or feel welcomed into these dialogues or spaces, I have had to compromise aspects of my Persian-ness or succumb to adopting a generalized Middle Eastern identity in order to engage in discussions. I think that the socially conscious and active community at Tufts, which claims to create an inclusive space for marginalized individuals, tends to fall short in understanding or acknowledging the nuances of certain intersectional identities that exist on this campus, mine being one of many.

I grew up speaking Farsi, and the food that I have always eaten at home is so specific to Iran that I’m disheartened when our culture is generalized and placed within the socio-cultural landscape of others within the Middle Eastern region. Obviously, I am not angry or even shocked that people don’t know much about Iranian culture. It is rather the disregard or almost a sense of entitlement that many people on this campus feel when trying to locate my identity that puts me off. Surprisingly, people who major in American Studies, Sociology, and Anthropology have been among those who have asked me things like how spicy I like my food or if I know how to make homemade hummus. Iranian food is not spicy at all, and we don’t make or eat hummus unless we go out to restaurants.

Many times when White social justice activists on this campus ask me how to create more inclusive spaces for POC, I find that I want to respond by saying, “Stop trying to speak on behalf of identities that you don’t understand. Stop trying to locate us to fit into your social justice narrative or use us as a token to investigate intersectionality when you’re blindly unaware of the fundamental differences among our cultures.” For example, not identifying as a Middle Eastern gay man but rather as a Persian queer man is often read as commendable or “interesting” by socially active folks at Tufts, but rarely incorporated into important discussions or dialogues about queer POC on campus.

The socially unaware, uninvolved, and generally conservative White population at Tufts is truly, however, the largest demographic of individuals who have contributed to my anxieties, anger, and frustration. Whether it’s the toxic White gays at previous Rainbow House parties who have commented on and fetishized my “exotic” appearance, or White girls who love to tokenize my foreign queerness, you have all failed to recognize your internalized racism and homophobia. From the one frat brother who spat on me and my friend outside of a frat house window next to Moe’s my freshman year, to the multiple athletes who have physically pushed and verbally assaulted me at campus events, you have reminded me that regardless of how hard I try to make myself palatable to you, I am still a Persian faggot.

Despite all of this, however, I am constantly reminded of how privileged and lucky I truly am. My parents worked hard to put me through private school and then a liberal arts education, and I am forever grateful to them for the sacrifices they have made for me. My family has given me the space to explore my identities and embrace me for wanting to hold onto or discard certain aspects of both. Many queer Persians, however, do not experience the same socio-economic security, access to education, and support that I have, and I recognize how fortunate I am to even be able to speak up and feel safe to talk about this on a platform where my thoughts can hopefully be validated.

Luckily, I have been able to surround myself by some incredible Persian individuals on this campus who strive to include the intersections of my queerness and Iranian identity into a dialogue, giving me a platform to exist comfortably. Given the current socio-political climate of this country, I have found an immense amount of strength and desire to make our identities as Persian known. My unequivocal love for Persians is the strongest it has ever been. No ban on earth could prevent us from succeeding wherever we go, and I hope that people at Tufts and those within my close circle of friends will seek to learn more about Iran’s immensely influential history, culture, and society before calling themselves allies.

For me to not speak up after three and a half years of having people speak for me would further detract from the importance of celebrating my overlapping, yet individually valid, identities. Tufts, especially in its attempts to create or foster a space for inclusiveness, does not incorporate the nuances of socio-cultural and ethnic identities into a space that unidentifiable individuals can claim.

To the handful of professors and sociology majors that see my identities as unique and different, I’m appreciative of you. To the greater socially “active” and “progressive” White activists, women, and queer folk on campus, practice what you preach. Don’t think that individuals like me are not constantly trying to make ourselves palatable to you either. And finally, to the ex-lovers, friends, and professors who have pushed me into a space where self-hatred and discomfort have permeated the past 15 years of my life, I look back on my experiences with you not as moments when I wasn’t strong enough to speak up against you, but rather as a time when I just didn’t know where to locate that strength.