#this is based off of north africa and the middle east WHERE IS THE FUCKING MELANIN

[kaeyaphile]

sumeru is so ridiculously beautiful and fun and exciting and not to be annoying but in all seriousness WHY IS EVERYONE WHITE?!?

[arabian-batboy]

If a war between Iran and Israel really will emerge it will not just be Iranians who will suffer, but every country in the region will be somewhat involved, which includes some nations that are already declared as one of the poorest, most war-torn and starved nations in the world. All of whom all be completely unprotected while Israel wreak havoc on their citizens (excluding those who live in puppet-states aligned with the US) with full-support and funding from the US and other Western superpowers to ensure that no matter happens, their influence and interests in the Middle East will not be lost and they'e willing to sacrifice the lives of as many non-Israeli civilians as they want to in order to achieve their goal.

This is one of the reasons they implanted this cancerous tumor called Israel in our region, to act as military base that cause instability and state-sponsored terrorism in the area so that it would be easier for them to exploit these failed-states that surround it and the best part is? All they have to do to maintain this military base is give them a couple billions and some weapons yearly so that those blood-lust Zionist settlers can do all the dirty work for them, that's NOTHING compared to the costs and casualties of other wars that had the US be directly involved in like Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan (off the record; but that's exactly why they're using Saudi Arabia to indirectly destroy Yemen, they learned their lesson, its always better to use a proxy.)

If a war breaks out? The US will not be in any real danger, because they're half-way across the world and all the fighting will be in West Asia and North Africa, far away from them. No American building is in danger of being destroyed, no American city is under the threat of being bombed, the average American citizen will not be in any danger and can just continue living their life like normal, hence why they're always the first ones to start making those WW3 memes, because they're not the ones in danger of dying.

This is precisely why the US's imperialism in the Middle East hasn't slowed down in decades, because they do not suffer any negative consequences from it. All the destruction and casualties they cause is inflicted solely on the native people and the native people only, for the US, they only have things to gain from these wars, whether it was stolen resources or more instability that will further their control and influence in the area.

The US, like every single oppressive empire in history, will not suddenly grow a conscious over-night and immediately halt all their wrongdoings simply because they don't want the innocent people in other countries to suffer anymore. The only way to stop their imperialism is to have them believe that its not worth it anymore, to have the cons of being involved in our region out-weight the pros.

Because at the moment if the only cons here are "innocent Muslims will die"? Then those motherfucking colonizers will NOT stop, they will only stop once it reaches a point where its also the colonizers who are dying alongside the native population and the first step for that to happen is to dismantle this giant settler-colony built square in the middle of our region and forcing these Western Superpowers to choose between continuously spending trillions of dollars to maintain their interests directly or to fucking leave us alone already and save those trillions for something else.

[entity9silvergen]

I recently asked reddit for some LGBT history from countries other than the US. Here’s what I got:

Germany

The Weimar Republic was surprisingly accepting of "alternative lifestyles."

During the Weimar Republic, Germany had a pretty active LGBTQ scene, with some major films and songs being produced, despite it still being illegal at the time. However, there was also a push to decriminalize homosexual behavior which sadly wasn't passed as the Nazis came to power.

This was based of two factors: after WW1 the authoritarian culture of Prussia sorta received a long overdue pushback. People were kinda sick of it, especially since these losers led them into a seemingly pointless war to begin with. Second: A LOT of men died in WW1 - and the army did not exactly prefer LGBT people. So with a lot of regular folks dead, the percentages of the total populace was sorta shifted. This also pushed the women's rights movements at the time for a similar reason.

Magnus Hirschfeld was helping trans people transition, crossdressers get crossdressing 'licenses', and generally advocating for and helping the LGBT community in the early 1900s in Germany. Nazis ended up raiding and burning down his research institute.

Hirschfeld was a gay polyamorous man. He was one of the first advocates for trans and gay rights but his work was destroyed by the Nazis.

The institute he headed even did the first modern gender affirming surgeries. The institute was destroyed and many people who were there (including the first known person to undergo complete MtF surgery) were killed by the nazis and the place was little more than bombed out ruins at the end of the war.

More information on the institute

Pre Nazi interwar Germany (Weimar Republic)  was pretty open when it came to not only sexuality, but also gender identity. The Nazis put a stop to that & tried to destroy any & all research into either, but, for a brief moment, it was there.

Russia

Pretty sure all Russian LGBT history was erased before we even had a written language, but Russia almost got gay marriage legalized in the first soviet constitution (didn’t happen bc Stalin)

The early soviet period (pre-Stalin) is sometimes called “the first sexual revolution” as opposed to America’s “sexual Revolution” of the 60’s. Broad women’s suffrage, female employment and education, parental leave, advancement of GSM rights & decriminalization of abortion. This unfortunately did not stand the test of time & reactionary sentiment.

Additional Source

UK/ Britain/ England 

The lead singer of Judas Priest is gay. The commenter’s father thought it was kinda funny because it didn’t match with his biker aesthetic, but the commenter doesn’t think he considered how much leather he wears on a daily basis

Hell bent for Leather was a track off Killing Machine. It was written by lead guitarist Glenn Tipton (who is straight), but it's fun to find alternative meanings in Priest songs. A second commenter likes to pretend a lot of the lyrics Halford sings are gayer than they actually are.

A couple people mentioned how uncomfortable it was seeing Ru Paul interact with British drag queens because he barely knows anything about British culture.

Ru Paul got angry that a British drag queen hasn’t seen the Golden Girls because “it’s gay culture” and then not five minutes later someone had to explain to him who Alan Turing was.

Alan Turing, who was an incredibly noteworthy figure (He made the Enigma codebreaker machine, which broke the code that was used by Nazis during the war and basically sped up the war by a significant margin. He also set the foundations for artificial intelligence, one achievement he was named for: the Turing Test), was homosexual and prosecuted multiple times because of it

Shakespeare was probably bisexual (some of his sonnets had homoerotic subtext/were sent to a younger man). Plus, Hamlet is gay as fuck. 

Sonnet 46 was very gay. Here’s a link!

King James 1st was corrupt and used his position to promote his gay lover to higher positions than he should've gotten. 

The 13 year old king James 6th of Scotland and 1st of England fell in love with a 37 year old catholic Franco Scottish man. The king gave the older man so much free shit that other lords started getting salty and his lover ended up converting to Presbyterianism out of loyalty to his young lover. He also fell in love with a man who ''was noted for his handsome appearance as well as his limited intelligence.'' 

Clearly James was into himbos, and women too.

He had a secret tunnel connecting his bedroom to George Villiers’s bedroom.

His relationship with Villiers was basically common knowledge and a source of much amusement and mockery. He also once said that his relationship with Villiers was equivalent to the relationship that Christ had with John the Baptist

Much more recently, there's obviously JKR and the banning of puberty blockers and Margaret Thatcher opposing LGBTQ+ rights by passing a law meaning you couldn't 'promote homosexuality'. 

Prince Philip was a racist twat (and probably a huge homophobe knowing him).

Gay marriage only became legal in 2014.

The Wolfenden Report was published in 1957, and it recommended the decriminalization of homosexual acts between consenting adults. It was a huge topic of public debate, and ultimately led to the Sexual Offences act of 1967, which legalized sexual acts between consenting men aged 21 or over in England and Wales (sexual acts between women were never explicitly criminalized). Scotland decriminalized sex between men in 1980, and Northern Ireland in 1982. 

For a totally batshit real-life bit of gay history, check out the show A Very English Scandal. It's about a politician, Jeremy Thorpe, who put a hit out on his former lover who was threatening to go public with the fact they had had a relationship. 

Austria

Gay marriage was legalized in Austria about 3 years ago. The worst thing is that it'd have staid illegal if the Supreme Court wouldn't have jumped in and declare it to be unconstitutional.

Austria did have something called "partnership" which was where gay couples could officially register with the state as couples but not receive any of the benefits of married het people

They still have super backwards Transphobic laws requiring for example "real life experience" to get even diagnosed. Basically you're forced to be and live as feminine/masc as possible and a doctor them judges if you're femme or masc enough. It's torture

Australia had widespread, over 60% approval of gay marriage for well over a decade before the government legalized it. The governments were actually going against the people for a very long time by denying it.

Taiwan/ Hong Kong/ Mainland China

When Taiwan recently legalized gay marriage, their official statement was something along the lines that they were casting off Western-imposed values and returning to their own traditional values and the entire western lgbt community ridiculed them in a "if that's what you need to tell yourself" sort of way but it's actually the truth. 

Prior to western colonization, the Imperial Chinese attitude toward sexuality was not dissimilar to Greco-Roman attitudes in that a man must marry a woman to beget legitimate heirs but whatever else he does on the side is his own business. It wasn't until Victorian colonizers came along and imposed homophobic attitudes on China that China started treating gays like abominations. In Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mainland China, as indeed most of the world, homophobia is a western value imposed by colonizers.

Bonus history: there is an actual saying in Arabic that was in widespread use across the Middle East and North Africa for thousands of years from classical antiquity until European colonization. The saying goes "Women are for babies, [young men] are for fun."

The commenter specifies that this means “college-aged twinks,” not children

Another commenter speculates about when homophobia arose in China and how. They also add that in Rome, bottoms were stigmatized. 

There’s a story of Emperor Ai of the Han dynasty & him cutting off his sleeve for his boyfriend

There is also a god worshipped in Taiwan, the Rabbit God Tu'er Shen, whose domain is managing love and sex between same-sex attracted people. He is meant to be the incarnation of a soldier from the 17th century, who fell in love with an imperial inspector and spied on him bathing, and was tortured and killed by that official because he was offended by the spying. A villager from the soldier's hometown dreamed that Tu'er Shen appeared to him and said that because his crime had been love, he had been appointed to manage the affairs of gay people. The villagers erected a secret temple to the soldier, and people have been praying to him ever since.

South Africa

South Africa became the first nation in the world to explicitly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation in its constitution. It was also first country in Africa to legalize same sex marriage in 2006. What really set them back for so long was apartheid.

There is some speculation that that Shaka Zulu was gay since he never took any wives

South Africa's post Apartheid constitution was the first in the world to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation in 1996.

South Africa was also the 5th country in the world and only country in Africa to legalize same sex marriage in 2005.

Even before that the Constitutional Court ruled that sexual orientation was not relevant when deciding child custody in 2002.

Transgender folks have been allowed to change their sex in the population registry since 2003.

Conversion therapy is not illegal yet and public opinion still needs some work.

Spain

In Spain gay marriage was legalized in 2005, now they are considered one of de gay-friendliest countries in the world. The commenter is a lesbian and has never been closeted or directly experienced discrimination for being a lesbian.

In July 2005, Spain became the third country in the world to explicitly legalize gay marriage, after a thirty-year struggle following the fall of Franco's dictatorship, during which most activism was carried clandestinely (as it was illegal).

From 2007 onwards, Spanish [binary] trans people can legally correct the name and sex fields of their IDs and currently, there's a push for a law that would allow for legal recognition of non-binary Spaniards.

Despite the dictatorship in the 60s, there were cinemas that specialized in gay meet ups. Trans women also had ways to get passports so they could go to the US for surgery.

Ireland

In Northern Ireland, same sex marriage only became legal in 2020 and the leader of the most popular party is homophobic transphobic racist and sexist af. In fact, the majority of the party are but some of the quotes from the biggest party leader are depressing.

Same-sex marriage was only legalized in Ireland in 2015. Homosexuality was decriminalized in 1993. 

When Ireland legalized same sex marriage by popular vote in 2015, it was still something you got horribly bullied for in schools if you were out. Queer people got an apology from the Taoiseach in 2018, for the suffering and discrimination we faced from the State prior to the legalization of homosexuality.

In the case of trans rights, in 2015 the Gender Recognition Act was signed into law. It allows legal gender changes without the requirement of medical intervention or assessment by the state as long as you are over the age of 18. 

Ireland has fines and jail time for anyone found guilty of attempting conversation therapy. 

Ireland has seen a lot of progress in LGBT rights in the last 6 years but even up to the 2000s, citizens left their family members and friends to rot for being LGBT+. It still happens all over the country, especially in circles that are still fanatically Catholic. As the Catholic Church has lost the iron grip on the country, people have become more accepting of the LGBT+.

India

The Kamasutra(ancient text on sexuality etc.) has an entire chapter dedicated to homosexuality

The Arthashastra, a 2nd century BCE Indian treatise on statecraft, mentions a wide variety of sexual practices which, whether performed with a man or a woman, were sought to be punished with the lowest grade of fine. While homosexual intercourse was not sanctioned, it was treated as a very minor offence, and several kinds of heterosexual intercourse were punished more severely.

Sex between non-virgin women incurred a small fine, while homosexual intercourse between men could be made up for merely with a bath with one's clothes on, and a penance of "eating the five products of the cow and keeping a one-night fast"

Milk, curd (cheese), ghi (clarified butter), urine, and dung are the five products of a cow

The commenter adds that this is not a terrible punishment.

The Mughal Empire mandated a common set of punishments for homosexuality, which could include 50 lashes for a slave, 100 for a free infidel, or death by stoning for a Muslim

On 6 September 2018 the Supreme Court of India invalidated part of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code making homosexuality legal in India

Prior to the British colonization of India homosexuality was not all that looked down upon when compared to what happened when the British took over and instituted anti gay laws.

The Hijra (literally means third gender) were seen as normal and have been accepted since long before Christ, as evidenced by the Karma Sutra. The British took videos of them to take back to demonstrate how the Desi were “barbaric”.

Bonsia

In Bosnia, there was a one pride parade that ended with religious extremists ruining it and the police not doing anything. It was supposed to be 5 maybe 3 days long but ended in like 1 or 2.

The Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe mapped out the entire night sky with only his eyes. It laid the foundations of many later scientists, such as Isaac Newton. He was a very rich nobleman, so much so that he owned 1% of Denmark's money. He had a pet dwarf that apparently could see the future, which sounds pretty gay. He was also part of the Elefant Ordning, which consisted of rich and strong Danish men.

Philippines 

Despite many attempts to legalize same-sex marriage, the Philippines still didn't budge. Being gay in itself is legal, but same-sex marriage still isn't.

Philippines ,the most Catholic Country in Southeast Asia, has held the largest Pride Parade in Southeast Asia.

Serbia

Serbia didn't have history from about 16th century to 1800's when the 1st revolt happened and failed till 1813's... Then yet another in 1830's for semi independence from Turks, and full in 1836

During the last lingering Ottoman rule over autonomous Serbia, Serbia was one of the very first few countries to have legal mostly everything... it then got removed with like 3 constitution changes and then it didn't move forward for a looong time

Switzerland

Would you have thought that small, conservative Switzerland was a center of the international gay community during the mid-20th century? The magazine "Der Kreis"- the circle - was the only queer magazine in the world that kept publishing during WWII. It was edited in Zurich and distributed internationally, which often meant illegal smuggling, even into nazi Germany. The magazine's annual ball was attended by hundreds of gay men from all over Europe each year. The whole thing was kept strictly secret from the public, though it was known and tolerated by the police.

The Kreis club disbanded in 1967, as repressions grew heavier after a number of murders in the scene had caught the public's attention. By then, other European and American groups took its place, publishing their own magazines.

They made a movie about it.

More info about Der Kreis

As of today, Switzerland doesn't allow gay marriage. A country-wide referendum will be held this fall on gay marriage.

The commenter speculates that gay marriage will be legalized.

A few people expressed surprise that Switerland is socially conservative and several people explained that women’s right to vote was only place in the 70s.

There’s a movie about it

Turkey

A Muslim Persian (born in modern day Turkey) philosopher/mysticist named Mewlana who is known for his sayings on acceptance and love for one another was gay! He had exchanged letters with his instructor Shams and wrote homoerotic poems to him! In Turkey this is ignored by many due to the country's stance on homosexuality

More information

Norway

The commenter’s hometown and the neighboring town arranged their first pride parade/event in 2017, which is a big deal for a small place and one of the local priests went livid and went straight to the newspaper and social media to condemn it. A local rapper wrote a short and to the point article in the newspaper calling him out for all kinds of things which was a great read. Then to top it off, the priest arranged for a "Jesus Parade" in protest to be held the day before the pride parade. Only like five people walked in it, not including the priest of course because he happened to be on vacation in Spain that week. The pride parade itself was a success though! It's become an annual event. Covid has put some breaks on it though, but they're making a documentary this year about the pride celebrations.

Hungary

Hungary has no same sex marriage or transition rights

Police are unkind to protestors

During “commie times,” being queer was illegal so queer people went to the gulag

Belgium

Same sex marriage was legalized in Belgium in 2003 (right after the NL who were the first in the world). The commenter says that same-sex marriage has always felt possible and she is confused about other countries’ actions.

Poland

Polish president on public assembly: 'LGBT is not people, this is ideology'.

Denmark

WHO took their sweet time declassifying being transgender as a mental illness, so Denmark got sick of waiting and became the first country to stop classifying it as an illness.

Australia

In Australia same-sex marriage wasn't legal until 2017.

Portugal

Portugal is know for having one of the most (if not THE most) peaceful revolutions in history back in the 60's, with only 4 deaths total.

Canada

Operation Soap.

Mexico

To learn more, watch Dance of the 41 on Netflix.

Netherlands

NL was one of the first countries to legalize gay marriage in 2001

Sweden

In Sweden they used to classify Homosexuality as a disease during the 20th century so in protest people would call in too gay to work.

New Zealand

When same sex marriage was legalized, the parliament broke into song.

The song

Other

Homosexuality is illegal in 73 countries, some by death or life in prison.

Only one country in Asia has legalized same-sex marriage: Taiwan

FNAF is older than same-sex marriage in the US

Condor Operation

I think this is some important stuff so please reblog so more people can see! And, if you would like to add to or correct anything here, feel free to do so!

[dwellordream]

“…I should hardly need to say by now that the idea that there is an intellectual downturn in early medieval Europe (or indeed medieval Europe more broadly) is a part of a specific imperial colonialist historiography which seeks to argue that any point when Europe wasn’t violently subjugating the world around it was necessarily a bad time. To this way of thinking, when the Roman Empire goes around turning everyone into slaves and violently opposing anyone it can get its hands-on things are good, because also some amphorae are traded across the Mediterranean; but when there isn’t one giant state oppressing everyone things are bad because fewer amphorae.

This is obviously a stupid and racist position which presumes that the nice things which rich Romans enjoyed (slaves and hegemony) were available to everyone, and also requires us to just ignore the fact that slaves are people. Rome wasn’t a very nice time for the great majority of individuals, and the medieval period had plenty of nice things for the average person – you just got fooled by a later medieval advertising campaign for art and a bunch of people who wanted to do slavery in the modern period. Accepting the idea that Europe did suck in the medieval period is automatically ascribing to this racist and imperialist version of history. In order for a society to be good and have worthwhile things it doesn’t need to be constantly attacking other cultures and enslaving people. Look inside yourself if you think that is true.

Another reason why this falls down as an argument is also that the whole “Europe as an isolated not trading enemy in opposition to the Arab world which had nice things and was gloriously well-connected” thing is not how things happened. If, for example, we look at trade routes in the earlier medieval period as a starting point we see that is in no way the case. We do see a drop off in international shipping when the Roman Empire collapses.

This is because the Empire itself used to ship goods along with moving troops in its fleets of tax-funded vessels. This existed alongside independent trading, which also moved stuff like olive oil from the Iberian peninsula or amphorae out of what is now Tunisia. Once there is no longer a state propped up by taxation doing shipping itself, shipping across the Mediterranean also slumps. That does not mean that it stops.

While we see a decline in movement, the key here is that we see a decline, not a total cessation. Movement very much continued throughout the early medieval period, and we have ample pot-shard based evidence to back that up. Yes certainly many people shifted to making their own pottery, but rich people could still get their hands on the good stuff if they wanted to.

You know when European shipping in the Mediterranean really slowed down? After the Muslim conquests. Where there had been a lively shipping economy suddenly there were a bunch of real bad ass guys who had carte blanche to intercept the ship of any infidel they could find. Oh and if you could take some of their land while you were at it, that would be great. All of this was made possible famously, the Umayyad conquest of Hispania went really well, felling the Visigothic kingdom on the Iberian Peninsula and turning all those olive orchards over to Muslim rule.

In quick succession, you then see the establishment of the Emirate of Ifriqiya on the North-African coast, as well as the Emirate of Sicily on, well, Sicily. In other words, a lot of the Western Mediterranean just wasn’t Christian any longer, so it’s kinda weird to blame Europeans for not maintaining trade routes there. You can’t simultaneously demand that Europeans trade more with the Muslim world while ignoring the fact that the Muslim world was also a part of Europe, and very much interested in dominating any extant trade routes.

This narrative also completely ignores the fact that there was thriving trade which existed all through this period. We have plenty of records on port tolls and taxes which tell the story of luxury goods crisscrossing the continent and across the Mediterranean, regardless of who was doing what. Walrus ivory and amber from the Baltic coast ends up at the Eastern Roman court in Constantinople.

Furs, honey, and elephant ivory popped up basically anywhere anyone had the gold to trade for it. Oh and gold, which largely came from Africa, was around the shop too. Indonesian spices like pepper and nutmeg featured happily in European cuisines, and lapis lazuli from Afghanistan was being ground into ultramarine. You want luxury goods? They were there, because trade was still happening. It just wasn’t happening on an imperial scale – an undertaking which I will again remind you takes a whole lot of slaves to maintain. The idea that Europeans were an unwashed and unrefined mass in opposition to the glories of life in the Arabic world just doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

The backward post-Roman Europe versus glories of the East narrative also very helpfully ignores the fact that one of the glories of the East was the still extant Eastern Rome – with its afore-mentioned capital in Constantinople. (You may also know it as Byzantium, but we are trying to be precise here.) Of course, Eastern Rome was one of the big losers in the whole Muslim conquests thing, losing its extremely valuable territory in Egypt, which accounted for a huge amount of its tax revenue. It also very famously lost the near east more generally.

Having said all that, it was still a major maritime power, owning territory on the Italian Peninsula in what is now Calabria and Apulia. Constantinople was still very much about that Roman life in the medieval period, with a keen popular interest in Chariot racing, a lively trade with the near East and Western Christendom, and even what could be seen as a sort of pre-modern welfare state, ensuring that its citizens in cities always had enough grain to eat. If we want to pretend that everything was bad and gloomy in medieval Europe compared to the Arab world because Rome collapsed, how then do we account for the fact that it was actually still going at that time, and trading just fine?

Obviously then, narratives of trade stopping totally in medieval Europe are incorrect and overwrought, but why would I say that buying into them supports a colonialist narrative? The answer to that is saying that Europe didn’t have anything nice, as opposed to a flourishing Arab world is a way of justifying the violent incursions on the part of Europeans into the Middle East.

These arguments usually hinge on the idea that before the Crusades, Europe was a disgusting place full of people who didn’t bathe and nothing but unsalted porridge to eat. All of that changes, in theory, with increased contact to the Middle East with the establishment of the Crusader States in the middle east. The theory goes that it wasn’t until Europeans were able to carve their own ports out along the coast of the Levant that anything nice got into Europe at all. Without Europeans at Jaffa, there would be no spices, oranges, or rice in Europe. Hell, without all that religious violence maybe Europeans never would have anything nice ever!

That is not only factually incorrect, but it is a way of justifying what amounted to centuries of attempts to violently subjugate the Holy Land. Sure, all that violence was unseemly – but access to the Silk Road! It also amounts to a convenient justification for modern imperial and colonial violence. Well Europe was a terrible hell hole! What choice did they have other than to sail around the globe, enslave huge swathes of people, do a spot of genocide and begin to extract all possible value from any native people! After all, everything they had before they started in on the colonising in earnest was bad.

None of this is either historically correct, or acceptable. We can, and should, point out the major advancements that Mulsim society presented to the world. There is absolutely no doubt that there was a tonne of interesting stuff going on in the near East, and I in no way dispute that assertion. What is incorrect is the idea that medieval Europe was cut off from that brilliance, a backward hole where there was no trade, no spices, no intellectual culture.

Europe and South Western Asia have always been connected, and indeed the term “Arabic World” very much includes huge swathes of Europe at various points during the medieval period. If you want to say medieval Europe is a sad foil to the Muslim kingdoms, how do you account for the several European Caliphates? If you want to say that without the Roman Empire Europe lost everything bright and worthwhile, how do you explain the still up and running Eastern Roman Empire? If you want to say that without post-Crusades trade there never would have been meaningful trade in Europe how do you explain all the fucking trading?

The desire that many have to defend the medieval Arab world and its culture in the medieval period is laudable. I in no way am here to argue that it had a lot of good stuff going on. However, pretending that all of this had nothing to do with the European world and trade, or that the only place where intellectual advancement was happening was the Arab world is simply incorrect.

The medieval world was complex, interconnected, and very much a part of an on-going scholastic tradition. To argue that without violent force Europe would have languished as a dull afterthought it to argue for imperial colonialism. Medieval Europe was a vibrant and well-connected place, and it could have continued to be so without all of the slavery and genocide. Europeans didn’t need to rape and pillage their way through the world to learn and grow. They just did it because they could.

Pro-imperialist historiography is the air that we breath here in the decaying carcasses of the modern Imperium. I am extremely sympathetic to the urge to celebrate non-white cultures, and I spend quite a lot of time doing so myself. However, to argue that this was happening without any contact with Europe, and that Europeans cannot think or enjoy luxuries without also being involved in a violent imperial enterprise is extremely dangerous.

I know that the people who make this argument think they are being enlightened, but they are still making a pro-imperial argument when they trot out tired myths about the medieval period. We don’t undo the colonial historiography by agreeing with it. We need to write our own history which admits that every world culture has something useful and beautiful to offer us all, and that a better world can be achieved without the subjugation of others.”

- Eleanor Janega, “On colonial mindsets and the myth of medieval Europe in isolation from the Muslim world”

[emsartwork]

Can I ask why you chose those specific fairy tales/mythological/folk figures for the Mythix redesign? Very much enjoy how unique the designs are and how they draw from multiple different cultures thnx

Yeah so Mythix was a process and had a lot of concept brain work before i ever put anything down on paper. I think I had a few ladies in mind from the very beginning (Scheherazade is one of my favorite folk lore ladies just in general lol) but i wanted to pull from as many different cultures as possible, and have fit the winx girls’ ethnicity when possible. 

So for a character like Musa, who is Asian even if she is technically from an alien planet, I wanted to draw from mostly north east asia(even tho south and south east asia have super cool stories too), and I know a good amount of japanese folklore because of...... anime reasons and at first I was trying to find a japanese figure related to music, voice, or mouth, but I kind of hit a wall with that one because the only one i could think of/find was the tongue-cut sparrow story or the Split mouth woman which, while interesting, aren’t all that fitting for a powerful magic lady. You of course have momotaro, princess kaguya, or, a personal favorite, the boy who drew cats but none of those felt right either so I expanded my range to China and IMMEDIATELY landed on Mulan, I like to think at least some of her story was true, but even if she is just a legend WHAT A FUCKING LEGEND AMIRIGHT. she was perfect for a powerful magic lady, strong, honorable, selfless, protective, and smart. Even if her “power” wasn’t realted at all to music she was a perfect fit. 

With Flora I wanted to draw from Mexican or native american(aztec or mayan) folklore, I actually did consider making her Scheherazade for a hot minute cus I draw a lot of inspo for Flora and Lynphea from Persia/the middle east in general, but ultimately decided against it. La Muerte is another favorite figure of mine, partially because she has such an interesting origin from an anthropological point of view. with the blending of catholic saints and native cultures in Mexico and possibly some influence from what would eventually become voodoo. Also, Dia de Muertos has that whole marigold flower petal association which perfectly links to Flora. 

Aisha was a little more difficult because she’s black, and black people are, ethnically, from Africa, and Africa has SO MANY DIFFERENT CULTURES AND STORIES AND EVEN JUST GEOGRAPHY. and i know from past experiences its stupidly hard to find good reliable references for any of the native cultures in Africa, or america for that matter, because racism and colonialism. So I tried going by Aisha’s name, which is of Arabic and Swahili in origin, but arabic and swahili are both spoken in many countries across south Africa North Africa and the Middle East, so I used her parent’s names Niobe and Teredor which are both Greek sounding so that pulled it towards North Africa/Saudi Arabia(where there was a lot of Greek influence). SO i thought to myself, what about egypt??? Didn’t the Cinderella story originate in Egypt with an eagle and a sandal and a prince or something?????? UNFORTUNATELY THAT’S A LIE(as far as my research showed). So I was mega stumped with Aisha, and I tried applying Scheherazade to her as a last ditch effort because Saudi Arabia, and.,,,....,, it fit???? like weirdly well???? like Aisha and Scheherazade are both BAMFs with unrelenting determination, an urge to protect the innocent, and punish the unjust they just do it very differently, but I liked the contrast between Aisha’s more active aggressive style and her switching to a more subtle story teller’s methods. So somehow I got it to work out ethnically, geographically, personality, and using my lady Scheherazade AND the design + the colors came out fantastic imo.

Stella was easier, I knew I wanted to pull from Greece, and possibly link to Apollo if possible so I looked up the temple of Delphi to see if there were any notable priestesses. Pythia came up right away, and had a gorgeous classical painting to use as reference so that was a snap tbh

Bloom was pretty easy, I’ve based Domino off of Scotland and a lil’bit of China but appearance wise she’s VERY white. But I was already pulling HEAVILY from Scotland and Ireland for Morgana and Tir Nan Og, so I broadened to Europe in general(which means I had a lot to work with because fairytales are so Eurocentric *eye roll emoji*) I decided to go with cinderella because CINDERS come from FIRE(aren’t I clever) and glass making requires a lot of heat. I mentioned earlier that there are theories as to where the “cinderella” story truly originated, The most popular being China, Egypt, or Germany(as far as I researched the Egyptian and Chinese “versions” of Cinderella barely resemble the story?).  Aschenputtle is the iconic one from Grimm Brother’s collections in 1812 but I chose to use the edition that popularized the story in 1698 by Charles Perrault since thats the “classic cinderella” modern audiences still recognize(even tho i am very partial to the more violent german version lmao). Her outfit design was a bit of challenge but I really like what I came up with.

Tecna was..... troublesome. Pink hair doesn’t exist irl unless it’s dyed, so I had only a partial appearance to base ethnicity on. I pull a lot from Russia for Zenith tho, so I figured I would start with Baba Yaga(who is already a villain in world of winx so I wasn’t gonna use her anyways) and see where that lead me. I came across Vasilisa the Fair/Beautiful/Wise, she featured in a lot of Russian folklore and had a lot of different aspects/personalities/stories so I kinda tried to pull from all of them (which gave me difficulties later on in the design process) She was one of the only Fairytale figures I could find that had a direct connection to intelligence (not that other fairytale ladies aren’t smart ofc). Because of Vasilisa’s many different roles and some physical transformations (russian frog princess) I made her the Fairy of Transformations. Tecna is probably the one I’m least satisfied but I’m not changing it lmao 

[propshophannah]

Part 1: So I'm reading the mixed race/mixed ethnicity threads and I couldn't help but relate a lot to the struggles. I'm half Mexican half Asian (I'm saying Asian here instead of a country because at least I know what to label it under these ridiculous categories) but I really hate it when I have to mark down what I am even though I'm not sure what the Mexican "race" is? Like, I know I'm biracial but is the other non-Asian part white? (Cuz I do not look white at all, and neither does

Part 2: the Mexican half of my family) but Hispanic is technically considered white? The worst part is when the dumb boxes say like “African, non-Hispanic” “Asian, non-Hispanic” “Hispanic” but no single box to choose for me (Asian-Hispanic) Like, race and ethnicity are not excludable?! At least I’m seeing more opportunities to check more boxes but still sorta confused and stuff…

—

So Hispanic is a loaded term, and it’s used in so many different ways, to mean and designate so many different things.

And here is where this gets complicated: In the U.S., Hispanic and Latino are an ethnicity and not a race. (But racially, the U.S. says we can racially identify as whatever the heck we want! Keep reading.)

And some would argue that there are decent reasons for that. Reasons such as there are many different races that fit within that designation. And there are some that argue that not having adequate space (a label) for people to racially identify as hispanic or latino is an erasure of them and their existence.

Several civil rights groups have spoken out about this because it is so problematic. For people on all sides of the argument. Because Spanish/European colonists came, they commit systematic genocide of three entire native nations (and irrevocably changed the rest), they enslaved them, bred them (with whomever they wanted), raped them, worked them to death, imposed their culture and the Spanish language on them etc.

So now Latin America is very very very mixed. Therefore the U.S. Census Bureau defines “Hispanic” as:

“People who identify with the terms “Hispanic” or “Latino” are those who classify themselves in one of the specific Hispanic or Latino categories listed on the decennial census questionnaire and various Census Bureau survey questionnaires – “Mexican, Mexican Am., Chicano” or ”Puerto Rican” or “Cuban” – as well as those who indicate that they are “another Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin.“ Origin can be viewed as the heritage, nationality group, lineage, or country of birth of the person or the person’s ancestors before their arrival in the United States. People who identify their origin as Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish may be of any race.”

Yes, you read that correctly. We can be of any race. Not to dumb this argument down, or sound like a complete asshole, but the U.S. government is basically saying that South American history is so complicated, they they don’t want to deal with picking it apart to decide who gets a racial designation. “Let them be whoever they want to be because it’s in their bloodline somewhere.” Which is a gross dumbing down of what Census Bureau means….but it’s not completely incorrect either.

The U.S. Census Bureau also says:

“The racial categories included in the census questionnaire generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this country and not an attempt to define race biologically, anthropologically, or genetically.”

Pause here because race doesn’t exist in an empirical, measurable sense, right? Any college professor/educated person will tell you that. BUT the effects of race are very very VERY measurable. Therefore race exists in a real, tangible way.

Last thought, if we could get an anthropological definition of racial categories, it would 100% be the only one worth using because it would take into account all the nuance.

Moving on!

“In addition, it is recognized that the categories of the race item include racial and national origin or sociocultural groups. People may choose to report more than one race to indicate their racial mixture, such as “American Indian” and “White.” People who identify their origin as Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish may be of any race.

OMB requires five minimum categories: White, Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander.”

“White – A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.”

Bet you (and probably Trump) didn’t know that about people from the Middle East!

“Black or African American – A person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa.

American Indian or Alaska Native – A person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America) and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment.

Asian – A person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander – A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands.”

“… An individual’s response to the race question is based upon self-identification. The Census Bureau does not tell individuals which boxes to mark or what heritage to write in. For the first time in Census 2000, individuals were presented with the option to self-identify with more than one race and this continued with the 2010 Census. People who identify with more than one race may choose to provide multiple races in response to the race question. For example, if a respondent identifies as "Asian” and “White,” they may respond to the question on race by checking the appropriate boxes that describe their racial identities and/or writing in these identities on the spaces provided.”

I feel like so much of my identity can be summed up as “In the space provided.” LOL

This doesn’t help right? Because PLENTY of us racially identify as Latino or Hispanic. But if that’s not on the list, I can’t choose it. ALSO, they pretty much told everyone not on the list that they can identify however the heck they want. Because they decided to ignore a huge chunk of the world. (And there are absolutely political reasons for why so much of planet Earth is left off the Census/fails to exist to the U.S. government.)

So the point to this, is that you, my friend, are not the only confused one. And as far as I’m concerned the U.S. government gave us all permission to racially identify however the hell we want. Go forth a be…white, or black, or Asian, or whatever side of the bed you work up on. But yes, this is fucked up, and confusing, and it’s just one more way that people who are not black and not white have been kept from the conversation on race and racism…because how can we say you’re being racist, if we, ourselves, were never afforded a race?

[tessatechaitea]

Kamandi Challenge Special #1, Part Two

I have to read this in bits and pieces so I feel like I'm accomplishing more than I truly am.

Intelligent Killer Whales off the Pacific Northwest Coast.

Australia also hasn't changed being that it's home to the "Kanga Rat Murder Society." The Pacific Island Nations have become the Orangutan Surfing Civilization. I hope there's an issue with Kamandi visiting those guys. Other inhabitants and places of note: Snow Wizards in the Fjordic countries (those are the Nordic countries full of fjords); Polar Parasites in Moscow; Death Worshipers and Screamers in Africa; Wolves, Baboons, and Gorillas throughout Europe; Bulldogs ruling Britain; Savage bats, jaguar sun cults, and God-watchers in South America; and Ireland. Kirby must have gotten bored by the time he got to Antarctica because he just calls the people who live there Antarctic Ice Dwellers. I'm going to assume they're sentient penguins. The second story in the book is simply called "The Last Boy on Earth!" Which I've already noted is totally a lie because Kamandi is obviously the last girl on Earth. Kirby explains, with liberal use of exclamation points (which I'm totally in favor of), that Kamandi is named after the building she and her grandfather, the possible last people on Earth, lived in. Eventually Kamandi's grandfather decided to send her out into the world to reclaim their lost home. Grandfather: "Kamandi, my grandson..." Kamandi: "Granddaughter." Grandfather: "You must go out into the world and find a woman..." Kamandi: "Man." Grandfather: "...to take your seed..." Kamandi: "Ew, gross." Grandfather: "...so that mankind..." Kamandi: "Fuck mankind, Gramps." Grandfather: "...can continue to grow and prosper!" Kamandi: "You know what? Good idea. I'm out of here, you old freak."

This will the the spin from Kellyanne Conway and Sean Spicer when Trump brings about the apocalypse: "It was a natural disaster! Natural! Couldn't be helped! Stupid scientists didn't even see it coming!"

Kamandi heads up the Hudson River and finds a tribe of people. But they flee when she calls out to them. I guess waving and yelling "Hello there!" translates to "I'm going to fuck you up!" in their language of grunts and hand motions. It took Kamandi a few days to paddle this far in her little life raft so it must be a real pain in her ass when she sees the explosion from the bunker she left days ago and feels forced to go back to check on her grandfather.

"Am I mating? Is this mating? Is something pregnant yet?"

Kamandi returns to find looters have broken into Command 'D'! She must save her grandfather at all costs! Well, maybe at some costs. And maybe she doesn't really need to save his old patriarchal ass either, really. Kamandi finds some humanoid wolves have killed her grandfather so she kills them. Afterward, she leaves Command 'D' forever. She steals the wolves kinky truck and hits the road for an American adventure! Kamandi's first encounter is with Great Caesar and his platoon of tiger-men. They're riding horses who are probably thinking, "What the fuck? Why aren't we sentient in the future?! This sucks." Kamandi saves Great Caesar's life by killing a sniper and subsequently becoming Great Caesar's pet. I suppose if a dog pulled out a pistol and shot some guy who was about to shoot me, I'd feel obligated to take him in and feed him. Since Great Caesar is busy with his war, he sends Kamandi off with one of his men to be locked in the Royal City Kennels until Caesar returns from battle. Kamandi is cleaned up and dressed by a sentient dog which must be humiliating. I suppose it could have been worse and one of the sentient felines could have licked her clean. She's then brought to Great Caesar's victory celebration where she discovers the sentient tigers worship a nuclear missile. Was Jack Kirby ever sued by the creators of The Planet of the Apes? Kamandi decides the only hope at this totally hopeless point of being freshly washed, fed (with dog vomit but it's still food!), and clothed that the only answer is to kill everybody by blowing up the nuclear missile. I guess she loved her grandfather more than I've been giving her credit for. Kamandi's attempt at blowing the missile with a stolen laser is thwarted by Doctor Canus, probably because the stolen laser looks so much like a stick and Doctor Canus can't help but retrieve it.

Now kiss!

Doctor Canus decides to help Kamandi because he's a scientist and he'd like to do experiments on a talking animal.

This is unnerving. I'm beginning to hope all Doctor Canus wants to do is experiment.

I know I wrote I wanted them to kiss earlier but that was before I really thought that they might! Inside the room is Ben Boxer. He has the ability to press his chest and emit radiation. It doesn't sound like the safest power which is probably why Canus keeps him in the closet. Doctor Canus calls Ben Boxer "a natural atomic-pile." I really hope Atomic-Pile is his superhero name. Kamandi hugs Ben Boxer and cries and asks, "Grandfather says we must exchange seeds now." The end! That's it for Part Two! Here's hoping this comic book doesn't become prophetic this year!

[popehilarius]

World War Two

On July 16, 1945, the first nuclear bomb was tested in New Mexico. And when we dropped similar bombs on Japan, we’re taught that we did it to save lives. And World War II is seen as a good war. But it was also the bloodiest war in human history with something like 65 million deaths. Almost half of which were Soviet or Chinese. The numbers, by country, are insanity.   

The opening shots of the war happened in 1931, when Japan went into Manchuria. At the same time, Hitler was increasingly ramping up military spending in Germany. And then Mussolini invaded Ethiopia in 1935. When the U.S., Britain and France did nothing, Hitler assumed none of them wanted a war. So he invaded the Rhineland in 1936. Apparently it was a big risk on his part, since Germany would not have been able to defeat a French force at that point.    

There was also zero Allied response to the Spanish Civil War, where Franco ended up creating a fascist dictatorship. Anti-communist corporate leaders in the U.S. hated the Spanish Republic. And American Catholics, along with Hitler and Mussolini rallied to pro-Catholic Franco’s support. Hitler’s Condor Legion bombed civilians in Guernica in 1937, which was one of the first war crimes to capture global attention. It was made even more famous by a Picasso anti-war painting the same yer. 

Ford, GM and Firestone aided the fascists. Texaco’s chairman, Torklid Rieber, was a fascist sympathizer who gave Franco oil on credit and later aided the Nazis. FDR later stated regrets for not intervening, and it led Stalin to believe the Allies had no interest in stopping the Nazis or the global advance of fascism.   

War erupted in China in 1937. Japan took Nanjing and brutalized the people. Germany annexed Austria in 1938. To avoid war, the Allies capitulated to Hitler at Munich and allowed him to take the Czech Sudetenland. Neville Chamberlain was treated like a national hero for his appeasement.    

The Allies also did nothing when the Nazis instituted the Night of Broken Glass on their Jewish citizens. American public opinion finally turned on the Nazi government. But most Jewish refugees were still barred from entering the U.S.

Hitler broke his promise at the Munich Accords and took the rest of Czechoslovakia in 1939. To buy himself time, Stalin signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler, where they divided Poland and other areas of Eastern Europe into spheres of influence. Stalin had wanted a pact with Britain and France, but they would not allow Soviet troops on Polish soil. Then the Nazis invaded Poland, which resulted in Britain and France declaring war on Germany, which actually surprised Hitler. Stalin invaded Poland soon after. Then they went about gaining control of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and beginning mass persecutions. The second World War was officially underway.

Germany conquered Denmark, Norway, Holland, and Belgium. France, which had been decimated by World War I, collapsed after two weeks of fighting in 1940. The anti-Semitic, anti-communist ruling class of France decided to collaborate with the Nazis.     

Hitler began terrorizing England with an air assault. But new prime minister, Winston Churchill, rallied the nation behind him with powerful speeches. And Germany’s failure to conquer England was a turning point in the war and made Churchill a living legend in the UK. 

Americans still wanted no part of this. World War I had made them strongly isolationist. Although attacks on Jews and the fall of France shocked many in the country. And FDR believed that Hitler was bent on world domination, so he started aiding the Allies. He gave 50 old destroyers to Britain and set embargoes on Japan to drive them out of China and delay their access to raw materials. Japan retaliated by joining the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy.

In 1940, FDR broke precedent and declared for a third term, believing he was the only candidate who could deal with the Nazis. He chose Henry A. Wallace as his running mate. Wallace had been a supporter of the New Deal and his agricultural reforms had helped immensely during the Great Depression. He was also in favor of military mobilization. And through his friendship with George Washington Carver, he was pretty cool, racially. Democratic Party bosses thought Wallace was too radical and eccentric, but FDR gave the 1940 Convention an ultimatum. It eventually took a speech by Eleanor Roosevelt to convince the party bosses to put Wallace on the ticket. But they were not happy about it.    

In 1941, Germany was at the height of its powers and decided to attack the Soviet Union. In Mein Kampf (1925-26), Hitler had laid out the concept of lebensraum, or eastward expansion into the vast and resource-rich Soviet Union. In order to do so, the Slavic and Jewish people would have to be removed to make room for the German master race. So with England no longer a threat in the west, Hitler went after the biggest prize of all. During the Great Purge, Stalin’s paranoia led to the arrest and/or execution of most of his country’s military command. But what Hitler wanted to do to the Soviet people was much, much worse.  

Three million troops invaded the Soviet Union, surprising Stalin. Ukraine fell in 1941 and the Battle for Kiev killed 500,000 Soviets. Those who weren’t killed were turned into slaves. Taking Ukraine also meant taking the Soviet industrial heartland. The U.S. and British thought the Soviet Union would fall, and feared Stalin would make peace with Hitler. Even the communist-hating Churchill had to pledge support for the Soviet Union.    

Stalin desperately wanted Britain to engage Hitler in Europe to force a second front. But the Allies totally didn’t mind the Soviets absorbing most of the punishment from the Nazis. The U.S. and Britain were reluctant to give Stalin supplies. And many Americans (including Harry Truman) would have been perfectly happy to see a Soviet defeat. Nevertheless, FDR eventually sent aid.  

FDR met with Churchill in Newfoundland, with Churchill begging the U.S. to join the war. Roosevelt knew that Congress would have rejected any war plans at that point, so he said he’d supply all aid short of war. And hey, maybe it would provoke a response. But Roosevelt also laid out his vision for the world after the war, with political and economic freedom for 3rd world countries. America would fight the war for self-determination, a New Deal for colonized nations. And Churchill, who loved his empire, knew that the price of American aid would be giving them the world after the peace. FDR’s vision became known as the Atlantic Charter, and it would also become the manifesto for the United Nations. Leadership in the world was slipping from Great Britain to the Americans.    

Hitler, who considered the Japanese to be racially inferior, didn’t bother sharing any of his Soviet plans with Japan or try to get their support. That would have enormous consequences for the fate of the world. If Japan had entered into war against Stalin, the Soviets probably would have been crushed. But Japan wanted an empire of their own and they drove into Indochina in 1941. The U.S. responded by cutting off Japan’s oil supplies, which made them abandon their invasion of Russia and led them to focus on getting oil from the Dutch East Indies. The U.S. base at Pearl Harbor was seen as a possible hindrance to those plans.   

Japan launched a surprise preemptive attack on Pearl Harbor, which led the U.S. and Britain to declare war on Japan. Hitler, who had not even been told about Pearl Harbor, also decided to declare war on the United States, for whatever reason. Big fucking mistake. FDR and Churchill were actually relieved by that. Britain got an ally on two different fronts. And it probably ended up saving Europe.    

Japan began picking off British and American colonies in the Pacific. Thailand, Malaya, Java, Borneo, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Burma. The Philippines was the worst military defeat in U.S. history. The Japanese also stunned the British Empire at their major military base in Singapore in 1942. 80,000 Commonwealth soldiers were taken prisoner in the worst military defeat in British history. If Japan had coordinated at all with Germany, they probably would have gotten India. But the two countries never acted like real allies.

The U.S. counteroffensive was led by Douglas MacArthur and Chester Nimitz. They defeated Japan at Midway, a huge naval victory and a turning point in the Pacific. The U.S. war economy was cranking out weapons. And technological innovations like radar and the proximity fuse also aided in victory. But it was the Bomb that changed the course of history.  

In 1938, German physicists discovered nuclear fission, which would make a bomb a theoretical possibility. That freaked out Jewish scientists in the U.S., who were met with apathy until Leo Szilard got Albert Einstein to write a letter to FDR urging a competing nuclear program. Einstein would later regret sending the letter. But the Manhattan Project was created. And it included scientists like Robert Oppenheimer (an admitted communist), Enrico Fermi and Szilard, who invented the nuclear reactor. In reality, Germany had abandoned their nuclear research in 1942 to focus on V-1 and V-2 rockets. The Americans, however, pressed on. 

In the east, the Soviets were on the verge of collapse with the Nazis about to take Moscow. Stalin pressed the Allies for a second front in France. But Churchill, who had just suffered a great defeat in North Africa, convinced FDR to help in there instead. Churchill was mainly concerned with British oil reserves in the Middle East and access to India through the Suez Canal. With no help from the Allies, the Red Army still managed to reverse the course of the war.

Because Japan had marched south, Stalin could bring Marshal Zhukov’s Siberian division back to Moscow. And much like Napoleon at Moscow in 1812, the Germans were stopped. The Nazis also besieged Leningrad for 900 days but never took it. The Soviets there lived in hellish conditions and the casualties are mind boggling.

Stalin then began the greatest forced migration in human history. 10 million people were moved to the interior to build factories and crank out tanks and planes for the war effort. Facing extermination, the Russian people were determined to fight to the bitter end. 4-8 million Ukrainians and 2.5 million Belarusians died in the war. And when Germans saw that they couldn’t wipe out the Soviet population, they decided to go after their resources instead. Russian oil reserves were in Baku. And Germany getting that oil assured a Russian surrender. But first, the Nazis would have to go through Stalingrad.

Stalingrad is the bloodiest battle in the history of human warfare. The Soviets lost more people there than the British and Americans in the entire war. 500,000 Soviets were killed. Germany lost 200,000. Any Russian soldier who attempted to flee was also killed. 13,000 died that way at Stalingrad, 135,000 throughout the war. Not to mention the millions in gulags or whatever other sick shit Stalin was into. Germany had to withdraw to replace their losses. And the Soviets, with all their new tanks and planes, could finally go on offense.

After a defeat at Kursk, Germany began a full scale retreat on the Eastern Front. And while American myth loves to say that we are the heroes of World War II, it was Stalin and the heroism of the Soviet people who defeated Nazi Germany.

[renka-aardvarknews-blog]

Italy on Collision Course with EU

For the first time, a populist coalition has taken over a Western European state. After 11 weeks of negotiations, the populist parties that triumphed in March’s Italian elections have agreed on who should be Italy’s new prime minister. Before they could settle on Giuseppe Conte, a 53-year-old law professor with no previous political experience and little political conviction, they had to agree that Silvio Berlusconi, an 81-year-old swinger with plenty of political experience and convictions for tax fraud and wiretapping, should not be prime minister. Only when Berlusconi withdrew did a deal become possible. This, as much as Conte’s inexperience and the ideological differences between his patrons, the old-right Lega and the alt-left Five Star Movement, suggests that Conte is not going to be a real prime minister at all, but a messenger who happens to sit in a big chair. The terms of the message are still being worked out but, whatever it is, it won’t please the European Union. March’s election result confirmed that the Italians, once the most Europhile of EU publics, are deeply disenchanted with the union. The reasons for the electoral rebellion are a stagnant post-2008 economy, high youth unemployment, mass immigration from the Middle East and Africa, and the utter failure of Italy’s political class to do anything other than feather its nests and fill its pockets. In 2008, Italy’s GDP was equivalent to $2.39 trillion. In 2016, Italy’s GDP was $1.85 trillion, which is where it was in 2005. Italy’s public debt is equivalent to 132 percent of its GDP; the third-largest debt of any developed economy. As of January 2018, youth unemployment was at 31.5 percent. This is not as bad as Spain (36 percent) or Greece (43.7 percent), but it is twice as high as the EU average (16 percent), and roughly five times’ higher than in Germany (6.6 percent). A lost decade, and frustration at the way in which Berlusconi, having promised to get rid of Italy’s corrupt postwar political class, replaced it with another corrupt political class, produced the electoral upset of March 2018. The Five Star Movement, a populist anti-party of left-wing provenance founded by the comedian Beppe Grillo, won the most votes (32.7 percent), but a center-right coalition of four parties carried a plurality (37.35 percent). The dominant parties in that coalition were the Lega (League), a populist party of hard-right and regionalist provenance (17.35 percent) and Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (14 percent). Berlusconi’s withdrawal allows the Legal and Five Star to form a working coalition, with Conte as their puppet. Italy’s president, Sergio Mattarella, now has to approve Conte’s nomination. He has no grounds to refuse. No one knows what Conte’s first ventriloquized statements will be, but their drift is clear. Five Star and the League have surged to power on the back of massive popular dissatisfaction with the EU’s post-2008 economic and immigration policies, and with a domestic political class that, when it lifts its nose from the trough, is complicit with Brussels. For the first time, populists have taken over a western European state. Or rather, two populist parties who hate each other have made an alliance of convenience against their common enemies. The League, based in the northern industrial city of Turin, is one of Europe’s more established New Right parties, and a political party in the traditional sense. Under its current leader, Matteo Salvini, the League has managed to shed its recurrent taint of racism and nostalgia for Mussolini. The Five Star Movement is not a party: Beppe Grillo, like Mussolini, founded an anti-party. The capital “V” in MoVimento Cinque Stelle stands, Grillo says, for Vaffanculo!: “Fuck off!” Five Star is as much a political cult as a people’s movement. It may now be led by Luigi de Maio, but its office remains Grillo’s website. Five Star could be called “alt-left,” in that it emerged from the collapse of the institutional parties of the left, and from Grillo’s failure to secure a leading position in one of them. Again, the parallels to Mussolini’s fascism are striking. The Five Star-League alliance is ideologically tense and perhaps untenable in the long term. But it looks like they will divide their turf domestically. The League wants to free the Italian economy from its bureaucratic and legal paralysis. Five Star has promised a universal basic income for the unemployed, the restoration of the social safety net, and free internet as a human right. Both parties want to get the trains running on time, and both have promised to fill them with unwanted migrants. Neither party has experience of government at the national level. The League does have experience in running northern cities and regions. But Five Star is full of neophytes. The failure of Five Star’s Virginia Raggi, mayor of Rome since 2016, suggests that while Five Star has more seats in the parliament, the League has a better understanding of how government works. Conte, for what he is worth, is a Five Star-ish post-leftist with technocratic leanings. In the past, both Five Star and the League have been explicitly Euroskeptic. The League, which is still registered under its full name, the Northern League for the Independence of Padania, has proposed that Italy’s industrial north should secede from Italy as the state of Padania, and held pro-autonomy referenda in the northern regions of Veneto and Lombardy. In the run-up to March’s elections, both the League and Five Star moderated their positions. The likelihood is that they will send Conte to Brussels to ask for debt relief. The League and Five Star have agreed a spending program that would cost 100 billion euros year. To find it, they need the European Central Bank to forget that, during post-2008 quantitive easing, it spent 250 billion euros on Italian sovereign bonds. This sets Italy on a collision course with the EU. Manfred Weber, who leads the European People’s Party grouping in the Brussels parliament, has warned that Five Star and the League are “playing with fire, because Italy is already heavily indebted.” On Sunday, Bruno Le Maire, France’s finance minister, said that Italians “must understand that the future of Italy is in Europe and nowhere else,” and that Italy should “respect” the rules. But a future in Europe is not the same as a future in the Eurozone. Last week, a leaked document showed that Five Star and the League want the EU to create a mechanism for countries to leave the Eurozone. Reviving a weak national currency would be another way to dissolve Italy’s Euro-denominated debts. Italy is not Greece. In 2016, Greece’s GDP was $194 billion, about the same as Kentucky’s ($197 billion). Italy’s GDP ($1.85 trillion) is between that of Texas ($1.6 trillion) and California ($2.62 trillion), or Britain, which has California’s GDP but not its climate. Greece has no economic leverage against the EU, but Italy and Britain do. Thus the EU is able to ignore Greece’s pleas for debt relief, but is obliged to negotiate with Britain. The question is, will the EU feel obliged to negotiate with Italy, when a majority of Italians still want to remain in the EU, and when neither party in Italy’s unlikely coalition has a solid position on its EU policy? It’s possible that Italy will become a laboratory for the new European politics—against the immigrants, for the natives, accommodating toward Russia, skeptical toward Brussels. It’s quite likely that the populists will bungle their chance at government, and create an opportunity for Berlusconi, with whom the EU would prefer to deal. It’s very likely that the EU will refuse to negotiate a custom deal for Italy. If it did, the EU would encourage Spain, Portugal and Greece to ask for debt relief, and a refusal often offends, leading to further anti-EU sentiment in Europe’s southern tier. Whatever happens, just when the Eurozone seems to be tipping into recession, the EU is about to face a crisis in relations with a core member. Dominic Green Dominic Green, Ph.D., is a columnist at Spectator USA and a frequent contributor to The Weekly Standard. Read the full article

[certifiedchillona]

Thoughts on“Reverse Racism”

Okay, this is all I’m going to say. I didn’t have a lot of time, so I barely got this done, but this is all I’m going to say about this. I won’t say anything more.

 @creamsicklesz Here is my response, and although I highly doubt you’d change your mind, I wanted to say this. 

Okay so this is the beginning of this long explanation on my thoughts to not only your responses on the topic, but just in general about the topic itself.

Racism

noun

1.a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to dominate others or that a particular racial group is inferior to the others.

2 . a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.

3. hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.

            To begin, I want to start off with talking about what racism is. Many people including yourself classify racism to be a simple definition is based off individual opinion and belief. They simply define racism as a belief that your skin color or “race” makes one race better or superior to the other. However, you can refuse it all you want, but racism is so much more than that. Its overly simplified, and to understand it you do not just look at a simple definition.

            Prejudice is a belief. It is judging people or something without prior knowledge of said person or thing. You can be prejudiced towards a white person.

            Discrimination is when the prejudice someone has, is put into action. If someone is refused a job or service because of their race or ethnicity or anything of the sort, it is discrimination. An example used by this article was if a black person who was an interviewer were to refuse a white person who is being interviewed, or vice versa, it would be discrimination. You can discriminate against white people.

            Racism is when this combination of prejudice and discrimination is becoming the norm or “institutionalized” within the population. Never ever have white people being segregated, treated unfairly, or anything of that sort been the norm. Never has there been a law that made whites anything less than privileged.

Now that that’s out the way, I want to address the responses you’ve made.

First I want to say that opinions by nature are biased. Whomever writes them and whomever speaks them, have decided from different sources and have a bias towards a certain opinion. To me, what is considered “unbiased” to you means that the source must come from someone who shares your views. My views and the views of those who think like me are very much biased and so are yours.

“This belief that you SIMPLY CANNOT BE RACIST towards white people keeps racism alive, it keep the divide between people and you are part of the problem. You should do some research instead of blindly listening to your parents or what the media tells you. Racism is racism plain and simple. When you group an entire race together for the actions of some, you are being racist.”

1)      Racism has never been a problem with white people. What you consider “racism” towards whites is not why racism is alive. Racism is alive because of whoop you guessed it racists. People who still believe it’s okay to discriminate against minorities and people who don’t have the power or institutional support to fight back.

2)      If I am part of the problem, the problem you are speaking of is completely different than the one that is happening before us. The problem is that racists are still able to oppress and discriminate against racial minorities and get away with it.  Trump is a GREAT example. He is a huge racist and look at him, he’s our president. He, a WHITE MAN is holding the power of the POTUS, and because racism is so normalized in our society, It’s okay. Being mean to white people isn’t the problem.

3)      You do not know me, and the comment that I blindly listen to my parents or social media was unnecessary, don’t try to invalidate others without knowing where they come from first. On that note, my parents heavily prejudiced towards black people specifically. My mother has literally told my sister that a boy she liked was ugly because he was very dark-skinned,and my father said black people should be grateful that slavery allowed their race to be more built and good at sports. They’ve never made an opinion about white people and told me that I should listen to what they say. The media is a whole other story. Media always depicts minorities and anyone other than white, cis, heterosexuals in a different light. Media tells me that the white man is the superior to all of us, and if I believed that, well I wouldn’t be typing this right now.

4)      Again, “racism is racism” means something different to you than me

” So if your source of education and research on this topic happens to be MTV Decoded and/or Francesca Ramsey, you really need to find another source that is unbiased and based in actual facts and logic, one that doesn’t Re-Define things to fit their agendas okay? MTV and Buzzfeed are heavy on that SJW sauce and they constantly contradict themselves. “

I will list my sources that I’ve used if you truly want to see that I’m not one to use only one source. I did not choose that video because of nothing, it made good points and although you may consider it heavily biased, the video made points that are important to address. Like I said before every opinion is biased and you can use different sources of facts to support your claim.

I’m going to break this quote into parts.

1)       “White Americans are the racial majority in America. So it would make sense that we get the most representation in MSM right? with that being said, the beauty ideals in America differ from region to region, however, tan and golden is the Most sought after. Not pale AF like myself, Not super dark like some. You cant blame others for your internalized colorism. I am CERTAINLY not the ideal beauty according to ANYONES MSM.-“

Like you said, beauty standards may differ from place to place. I agree with this opinion, but you are focusing only on skin color. If the ideal is “tan and golden” then why arent most models like that? Why is it that for example a black model isn’t sought out by companies? It’s because beauty ideals do not deal only with skin tone. Black features like their big lips (and I mean big, not the ideal “thick and plump”) or any other natural black feature are often seen as ugly. You do have people to blame for internalized colorism. It’s in the name, meaning someone or something has made you feel that one color skin is more beautiful or preferred than another. The only difference is how you decide to deal with it. It’s not easy to rid of things that were internalized, but people need to try.

2)       “Most people don’t give two fucks about your race and most people celebrate differences, especially these days. To those who have bad experiences with some white people, its is RACIST to assume all white people are the same and to avoid them completely.”

I personally don’t know where you live or what kind of environment you are surrounded by, but its true that in many places, specifically large urban areas, diversity is embraced and celebrated, but that isn’t the case everywhere. You have to understand that while you might live somewhere where racial diversity is embraced, others can be and are still discriminated against in other places. I do agree that ignoring someone based on their race is not okay, but this is an example of prejudice and discrimination of an individual, and NOT the normalized racism you see with others.

3)    “Just like Not ALL black people in America are criminals or bad people. Would you say its okay for a white person to avoid and judge black people for past experiences they’ve had? NO, you would call it racist, wouldn’t you? I was physically attacked for my race and still, some would say that’s its not racist. You have no compassion if you think that’s not racist. And still! I don’t judge any other black person for the way those 4 girls ganged up on me. I don’t judge other for the looks that I get from SOME black people. I never judged when SOME black people wouldn’t touch my hand when I was trying to give them their money when I worked at Walgreens. I didn’t judge all black people when I lived in Chicago and was CLEARLY the minority in my neighborhood. Don’t have double standards. It’s perpetuating racism and making it worse. I’m sorry if this OFFENDS anyone, but this is something I’ve always HATED. I HATE racism, sexism, homophobia. And I know most people do too. So I can NEVER UNDERSTAND how some think this is okay?! “

It is true that we shouldn’t discriminate against each other. It is dumb to assume that a few people represent an entire group. But again, it’s not racist. It is prejudiced, it is discrimination, but it is not racism. I guess you would deem me with no compassion, but that is not true. I can’t say anything about the situation where those girls “ganged up on you” because I know nothing of the situation. As for the walgreens thing, how do you know specifically it was because of race? I don’t like when people touch my hands, especially not strangers, so again, unless I was there, I can’t say anything.

“Every race has had their slaves, but people don’t think that counts. For some reason, we never learn about how the Arabs and the Middle East hosted more African slaves than North America ever did, we don’t learn about how white slaves were sold in Africa along with their own people, the fact that the slaves who came to America were sold by their own people is just ignored bc it doesn fit the racist agenda that is popular now. The African Moors had white slaves for hundreds of years.

This doesn’t mean that the slave trade in America wasn’t horrible, it obviously was, it just means it wasn’t special. As far as discrimination in todays Western society, In America since that is what I can speak first hand for, I can agree that white people haven’t had to deal with what blacks did. that’s %100 true. However, bringing back segregation and shifting the racism towards white people doesn’t make up for what happened in the past. I wasn’t alive for slavery or for segregation in the 50’s and 60’s but I can tell you right now I would have been in the street and sit ins along with all the other humans that deserved equal treatment. “By the way, in my opinion, racism is a way of thinking, its not just a definition. It’s thinking you are better than someone bc of their skin. it’s using an entire race as a scapegoat to explain your or the worlds problems. Its simply not having love and compassion for another human being. Its evil and its the worst part of humanity, it is the utter LACK of humanity. And no race is exempt from this. To say an entire race IS exempt from this is to say that race is superior to the other. This is R A C I S M”

The entire first paragraph is what I would parallel with the “All Lives Matter”. Yes other people had slaves, I acknowledge that this happened, but using it to defend your point is tearing down not only the suffering people went through, and the work we’ve done to try and rid of it. The “white slaves sold by their own people.” were mostly from Ireland and Europe. They came here willingly and those who didn’t most likely were told they had to be indentured servants in the U.S. by their country. I am going to emphasized indentured servants, because they were not slaves at all. They were treated far better than slaves in the south.

The African Moors did have white slaves, and it was a preference toward the blond hair, blue eyes. Their peak of european slaves was around 1.2 million, while America was home to about 4 million african slaves.

An example I want to use is if two people had a serious injury. Let’s say person 1 had one leg missing and person 2 had both legs missing. You wouldn’t tell person one to suck it up just because person 2 has both legs gone. You wouldn’t tell person 1 that their injury isn’t special or doesn’t matter because someone else has it worse. We are not shifting racism to whites, you are still in power, you are still majority, you are still privileged whether you want to deny it or not. It’s common sense that anyone should stand up to equality in the 50s and 60s. the 50s and 60s right? Well ye-no. In the decades of segregation, colorism was internalized and although you may have grown up with and abusive step father now, you have absolutely no idea who you would be raised by and how you would have grown up there. Racism is a way of thinking, but the thing that makes it racism is the fact that its normalized and minorities are not supported in any institution. The government is discriminatory of us, and that is racism.

In regards to this article

I don’t like this quote

“How would that have felt? Might you have imagined that this could reinforce in the minds of your classmates the stereotype that blacks are weak students?”

The whole situation itself that they used as an example is really weird. To say that someone is “randomly” put into an advanced class. Minorities in college were not “randomly” put there. You can’t compare someone being “randomly placed in an advanced class in high school” to someone who applied and has shown enough strength to be accepted into college. Colleges don’t pick minority students just because they can, minority students still have to work hard and have the qualifications to be accepted into colleges. 

Stereotypes are bad enough. This sentence is saying that the students in your class already look down on you for being black. It is saying that this stereotype is already in their mind and that when they see you doing bad, they’re like “ see black people are lazy”.

Minorities don’t have the same opportunities as white people already, affirmative action is providing those opportunities. If minorities are failing in colleges because of SAT scores and grades, then maybe think why they don’t do as well.

University of Texas:

A lot of this is saying that blacks and minorities aren’t academically prepared or competitive but I’m going to tell you that that this starts even before college. Minorities tend to be predominantly low income so they’ll be more likely to live in low income areas. If you compare these two maps, most low-income areas are higher in population of black and hispanics. This means that most likely, their schools don’t have the funds to give them the opportunities and funds to even be able to be competitive from even before college or highschool. Same goes for this data.

“Minorities also have a higher chance of being accepted in universities, even if their grades or academic record is not as “good” as their white peers. Again, they have the privilege. The problem of minorities not getting higher level education is that a larger percentage than white people do not finish high school or seek higher education.”

“Second, strong black and Hispanic students accepted UCLA offers of admission at much higher rates after the preferences ban went into effect; their choices seem to suggest that they were eager to attend a school where the stigma of a preference could not be attached to them. This mitigated the drop in enrollment.”

Again, I believe that this has to do with the fact that minorities are discouraged to begin with.They have few role models and representation, and the prejudice in this country often tells them that they won’t be able to account to anything.

“I wont get into black on black crime being more prevalent than white on black crime bc no one seems to think that’s valid.”

Mm it really depends because yes, black on black is more than white on black, but so is white on white. So depending on what you’re trying to argue, it could or couldn’t be valid.

“Not as many white people experience this because the white community finishes high school more often, they have less babies at a young age and out of wedlock, and they get jobs because of this. “

Whites generally have higher incomes which means better education. Better education not only means knowledge like math and writing, but also knowledge about family planning and safe sex. This really seems like you’re trying to allude that whites are superior because of their favoring in our society, but I could be misunderstanding.

“ I see more positivity regarding black hair etc. than I’ve ever seen negativity, at least in my lifetime and this generation. I see more negativity within the black community itself. This racism against whites is not social equality.”

You see more positivity on black hair nowadays because you most likely see it on the internet (which is a big thing in this generation), in the real world out there, not the internet community, a lot of people experience negativity about their hair. Again, just because you personally haven’t seen much of it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. And yes it is social equality, why? Because you are finally getting to see what it’s like to be us, and even now you still don’t and will not experience discrimination and racism at the level that we do.

“Two wrongs to not make a right. Knocking someone else down doesn’t bring you up. And it certainly doesn’t end racism in general, it perpetuates it. White people have not had privilege in a long time. Hell, white people aren’t even the race doing the best within America, that’s Asian Americans! They get the best jobs and the highest education. Because, on average, Asian families stay together, they have strong morals and work ethic, and they have a very strong emphasis in education.”

I agree with your first statement, but white people still have privilege….. The fact that whites get charged less time for the same crimes, you aren’t as frequent victims or police brutality, you won’t be ridiculed for your name, you can express yourself using other cultures and not be called “dirty” or be told to go back to your country for speaking your native language. Most likely, English is your first language, and you won’t be laughed at for an accent not favorable (ex: the Asian stereotype of “herro” vs people loving British accents). You guys are seen most times seen as one of the races least likely to commit serious crimes. Those are all privileges that aren’t available to all of us. Asian Americans are doing very well in America why though? You can look here. (and some other links in my sources). The very strong emphasis on education is a good thing, but it can also be very draining, as Asian American children have this weight put on their shoulders and even in Asian countries, many mental downsides come along with this. One example would be their very high suicide rates. 

“I do feel entitled to be treated like a human, just as everyone else should. I don’t feel that its right to be called a “White Devil” or that all white people are born racist and are inferior or to be attacked for no reason, for things ive never done, all because I’m white. I don’t care what you or anyone says, that RACIST.”

You do have the right to be treated like a human and everyone else too, the problem is that’s not the case with us. White people are treated like humans. Minorities (and not just racial minorities I mean all minorities) are denied rights and treated like we are inferior to whites. WE are the ones treated like the inferiors, not you, especially because we tend to have lower incomes, we struggle even more as a group. WE are attacked for no reason and far more often than whites. Whites are definitely not the victim, which is what I’m getting from this statement.

“If i were to group you all together for what one person does, it would not affect your ability to get jobs, to get higher level education, and other things of that sort Affirmative action was created to specifically help minorities acquire jobs and it is still active today, so in fact, minorities have the privilege in this instance. If someone is denied work simply because of their race and not their attitude, qualifications, or overall skill, that person can sue and will %100 win.” “However on the occasion that there is discrimination, which I know there is, that person has the ability to sue and I can guarantee they will win. This disproves systematic racism along with the other examples I provided above. And just in case they can’t afford to sue, there are public defenders and the NAACP has provided legal counsel for the black community on numerous occasions. “

If you were to group us together of course it wouldn’t affect as as you are one person. When a lot of white people who are the ethnic majority were to do the same thing, then we have a problem. Affirmative action was created to help us, but maybe you should think why we would need help in the first place? It’s trying to help us have equal opportunities that come naturally to a person born white in America. How can you 100% guarantee that if someone sues that they would win? The justice system itself is a problem at times, police brutality is made out to be okay, so what makes you think that someone would win in a court for this? I really don’t understand how you think that special programs that are made to help us = reverse racism? If we were equal we wouldn’t even need these programs, if we were equal then everyone would have the money to sue, if we were equal, then we wouldn’t have had to sue to begin with. Just because there are some programs here and there that help us, doesn’t disprove systemic racism. Systemic racism is still very much valid.

“As for “Other things” minorities are more likely to receive government assistance in the way of housing, food stamps, child care, and disability pay. In fact, I can give you a personal anecdote to prove my point. My Mothers BF had surgery on his back and was unable to work for 3 months. In an attempt to collect disability for the months he needed to recuperate, he was told he would NEED to be out for AT LEAST 365 days to receive disability checks. He was confused by this because his coworker received disability for the 3 weeks he couldn’t work due to a broken hand. He brought this up and asked why it is different for him and the worker straight up told him it was because he was white. That coworker of his was also an illegal immigrant fyi.”

My only problem with these examples is that I really can’t say anything about them because I don’t have enough detail. Where did her BF work? What was his role? What were the circumstances? I don’t know. I also don’t want to get into the treatment of illegal immigrants, especially in agribusiness. What I will say is that more often than not, we are more likely to get assistance because we are more likely to need assistance. Again, this is because our races have been oppressed and forced to the bottom of this social hierarchy.

“Im sorry but that doesn’t seem like they are being treated justly by the government. As for “White people have always had the advantage when it comes to race.” I agree, especially with “had”. past tense. I have no advantages as a white. I am middle-lower middle class in America. I cannot afford to go to college yet I cannot get govt assistance because my mother makes too much money. Not enough to send me to college though. However, if I was a minority I would have no problems getting grants and scholarships and financial aid. I have to wait to apply for fafsa or student loans until I turn 24 this year so they no longer need my parent income info or a cosigner for loans. I am not advantaged. I get jobs based on my skill level and my work ethic, not my race. The current job I have, I got lucky bc I happened to know someone working here already. Before this I was at Walgreens with my mixed race fellow employees and my black female manager.”

You do have advantages as a white. Really you do. If it was a minority in your place, I can place my bets that they wouldn’t have as many opportunities as you do just by being white. If you are having problem getting grants or financial aid for college, I think it could be because of research. Now I don’t know if you did a lot of research or not, I don’t know what you’ve done to try and get help for college, so I’m not saying at all that you didn’t try hard enough or anything. You as a white person actually have more of a chance to get monetary scholarships than a minorities. I don’t know your grades or what you’ve done in school so again, I can’t say if you aren’t or are qualified for these, but I’m assuming if you do rather well in school, that you qualify for institutional, merit-based scholarships.

“Black people DO gain something from being racist. Note the newly segregated “safe spaces” and segregated housing that have been installed on certain college campuses. The fact that you and many others think black people can’t be racist. And if this racism continues, it will just be flipped opposite from the 50’s and 60’s.”

For as long as white people hold power in the United States, you can’t have a “flipped” version of segregation in the 50s and 60s. Safe spaces aren’t something “gained” for minorities. Does it help us get equal pay? Does it help us have equal chances in schools, homes, jobs, etc? Safe spaces were originally created to show people they can be themselves without discrimination, but it has changed recently. I don’t think it is right to have these, but we don’t gain anything from it as a group in our society.

“Racism is a system based on the fact that for example black people, have had disadvantages both socially and politically based off of the race they were born into. We do not have a racist system, systematic racism doesn’t exist in todays western society, as ive explained above. Our system is set up to help minorities. We had a black president for 2 terms, we have black members in all areas of our government. The only thing stopping minorities from succeeding is themselves.” ““There are three things a person needs to do in order to not be poor in America. Finish high school, don’t have kids, and get a job. Although I would also argue that now, you also need a two-year degree but A very large percentage of black people do not finish high school, have kids at young ages, and depend on government assistance to sustain themselves. They family dynamic is broken down and the father rarely stays with the mother. If you don’t finish high school your chances of getting a good job are very slim. If you are a single parent you ARE going to struggle financially. Lets not forget the heavy crime in the black communities resulting from low income and low education”

Our system is still racist, not fully, but still. Especially with the Trump Administration. Yes, we had a black president for two terms out of how many other terms? 43. 2/43 terms is enough for you to say our system isn’t racist? The fact that it took so long for us to be able to even have a black president should be enough evidence because many have tried to run for the position before. Yes we have black people in our government, but how many? Whites have always had over half of the government positions. This is just in the executive branch. This last sentence is what really really bothers me. Me as a minority myself can’t even begin to wonder how it is to think that it’s so simple to succeed in life. I can not comprehend being able to have that kind of privilege. You truly think that the only thing stopping us is us. That the only reason we don’t succeed is because we don’t want to or we don’t try hard enough? Wow. Really I don’t even know what to say.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/19/the-real-secret-to-asian-american-success-was-not-education/?utm_term=.da1ebde186ff

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/10/the-asian-disadvantage.html

http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/06/racism-against-asian-americans/4

http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-median-income-in-the-us-by-race-2013-9

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/dear-white-people-please-stop-pretending-reverse-racism-is-real

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/07/15/884649/-Why-there-s-no-such-thing-as-Reverse-Racism

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/its-a-slap-in-the-face-when-white-women-wear-black-hairstyles_us_55c0c153e4b0b23e3ce3f27b?ebq08uxr=

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/reverse-racism-isnt-a-thing_us_55d60a91e4b07addcb45da97

https://www.dailydot.com/via/reverse-racism-doesnt-exist/

http://www.gallup.com/poll/18487/blacks-whites-advantage-college-admissions.aspx

http://www.colorlines.com/articles/study-white-students-more-likely-win-college-scholarships