#us centrism for ts

[hxrryspotter]

www(.)theatlantic(.)com/international/archive/2013/12/13-countries-where-atheism-punishable-death/355961/ but yes, atheists are at the peak of the societal pyramid lmao. stop with your us/western centrism already

omg you’re so embarrassing. you send me an article abt this and ts 13 COUNTRIES. im sorry but those countries? living there doesnt seem easy at all, you cant be gay, you cant do this or do that. idk why you look at those countries and suddenly think you’re a minority, globally? bc ur not.

don’t start with atheism is a ‘minority’ when being an atheist these days is totally more accepted than being jewish/muslim. you wanna complain to be about believing in nothing or believing in ‘science’ is such a hard life. maybe in those 13 countries but out of 190+ countries.... really.  wow so hard for you. how could i forget you face as much discrimination and hate crimes us as who follow a religion, who are gay, etc. in EVERY country. its nice to feel so important isnt it, anon?

im not saying that you dont face discrimination, just that you’re not a fucking minority.

[janiedean]

(Ciao, sono italiana ma scrivo in inglese perché purtroppo internet parla solo inglese, e ci dobbiamo arrangiare) I saw your posts on the great Italians are POC/white discourse and I felt I needed to offer my point of view, because while I'm absolutely sure that Italians and Europeans that are not children of immigrants are not POC, I also feel that defining us white is not correct. (Follows in the next ask)

(From the ask before) I always feel that "whiteness" as a concept was born to describe the US society, and applying it to the European (and especially Italian context) disregards the different history and culture, putting it in boxes that weren't made for it. Not to say that there's no racism, nor that there aren't people who hold a privilege above others. Just that "whiteness" is a different phenomenon and to define Italians "white" to me has always felt a bit wrong. (Grazie e scusa, ciao!)

(anon in realtà visto che sto discorso farlo in inglese porta solo delirio avrei preferito lo chiedessi in italiano così la gente non lo capiva ma vabbe X°DDDDD)

... anon while I see your point... you’re actually being extremely us-centrist here? because I mean, I 100% agree that *whiteness* as a privilege indicator in US society (and anyway it’s in itself extremely flawed, more on that later) is only a thing that exists in the US context/to describe US society, but why should I not call myself white when I am and when the entirety of the content has used it to describe its inhabitants’s skin color since way before US society was a thing? if helen in the iliad had white/pale arms in the description and she was GREEK, now we can’t say greeks were white or are white because it’s automatically become the same as whiteness in the US, and therefore.... we are pushing a US value on this entire continent?

like.

no.

the point is that white in the US does not mean white in europe and we don’t have their concept of whiteness-as-an-automatical-privilege and that we don’t use it as a sociological parameter as much as they do and our racism discourse is a lot more nuanced and based on nationality other than skin color.

but like. POC does not count either because in the US = anyone who’s not *white*/possesses *whiteness*, here poc = black person. period. so what do you call someone with a filipino parent and an italian parent, poc? any person I knew who wasn’t *black* or mixed with a black parent that I’ve ever known in my life (and I’ve known more than a few) would have never described themselves as a person of color. no chinese person in italy describes themselves as a person of color. it’s not that we put US whiteness in european contexts, it’s usually US-american people who do and we don’t, and literally no one has ever said that being white here = being white in the US, but like............. why should we automatically use US sociological terms and parameters to talk about us? the US-americans shouldn’t - and that’s what we spent years discussing before realizing it was a lost fight - and we shouldn’t do that either. like, of course **whiteness** isn’t an european phenomenon. but being white and having **US-american whiteness** are not the same thing and like since I can’t be either white nor poc according to this reason what the heck am I?

like: you can’t discuss US racism and european racism in the same terms because they work on different parameters and if a word means a thing in our context and another in their context, we all can learn to use them correctly instead of saying that one category cannot use it. so like... I really don’t agree with the fact that we should use US terms to describe us in the first place nor with the fact that we should stop using terms we always used to describe us because in the US societal discourse they mean something else. like, US discourse doesn’t own social justice discourse and I’d really prefer if it never did. /two cents

(also add-on under the cut but I don’t feel like discussing THAT too so)

also, I honestly would like to point out that the *whitness* concept in the US is actually extremely specific and only applies to WASP people not necessarily all of the famed white people TM, and anyway the white anglosaxon protestant privilege tends to stick if you’re rich, because if you look at how *poor* (uneducated) white americans in rural areas live/have lived in the last thirty years or so, you’ll find out that these people wouldn’t know privilege if it hit them in the face and that their whiteness didn’t stop them from living in tents or losing their houses and jobs all over and/or riding trains to find jobs during the eighties or living in their car. never mind that if you read any steinbeck reportage or the grapes of wrath, you’ll end up seeing white people from freaking oklahoma being called slurs and treated like third-rate citizens by white californians and if you look around and dig into some reportages (I’ll recommend dale maharidge’s until I die tbqh) you’ll see that the same situation happened at least throughout all of the eighties in texas with ppl from northern states ie ohio or wisconsin who tried to go to texas bc there were supposedly more jobs and the economical crisis left them without choices. I mean in the US white people are automatically privileged when they have money/are rich/in the position to gain money, if they’re poor their life is shit anyway and it’s exactly 90% of the reasons why the american left lost the elections last round so if I were them I’d think long and hard about it.

[janiedean]

Look, the reason Asian-Americans get so upset about whitewashing in American movies when people living in Asia doesn't, is because Asian-Americans ARE AFFECTED BY AN ALREADY IMPOSSIBLY TINY MARKET FOR ROLES. It's based in a really long and shitty history of racism so of course people are going to be up in arms about roles for Asian characters being taken by white people that already have a huge pool of roles to choose from and nobody telling them that they're not good enough for them. 1/2

2/2 If you could almost only be cast as ‘sexy exotic woman’, 'evil martial arts villain’, 'mysterious oriental martial arts master’ or 'sexless butt of the joke’ you’d also be upset at roles where your people get to be heroes, romantic leads and main characters getting twisted around to cast white actors because they are supposedly seen as more 'desirable’ and 'marketable’ than Asian-American actors. So yeah, Japanese natives doesn’t care because it doesn’t affect them and their careers.

… I read this three times and I swear I tried to come up with a nice response, but I don’t know if it’d be nice according to you so whatever. Never mind.

These are all fair points but you know what’s the fucking problem?

That at least on here, y’all market this as **cultural appropriation** other than whitewashing. and you wanna know something? let’s just use g*host in the shell since I guess it was what kickstarted it.

‘g*host in the shell is a JAPANESE MEDIA FRANCHISE’

JAPANESE MEDIA FRANCHISE

JAPANESE MEDIA FRANCHISE

JAPANESE MEDIA FRANCHISE

where does it read japanese-american or asian-american? nowhere. so if you care about the **cultural appropriation** behind it, the japanese’s opinion comes before anyone else’s at any time because they came up with the franchise. it’s their stuff, not yours. and if they think that americans making horrid movies out of their stuff isn’t inherently problematic then you should listen to them for a moment, or the chinese, or whatever, but no, because whenever I hear this argument it’s all ‘but it’s about US and not about THEM’ when you’re… talking about things that… they created. now, there’s stuff and stuff - the netflix death n*ote movie looks like an americanized dumb clusterfuck but uhm I haven’t seen that many people complaining about it (is that because one of the racebends is that a character became black? who the fuck knows), but like if the show itself then is inherently racist or sucks then by all means complain, if it’s not and it doesn’t suck and y’all just out to complain for the sake of complaining (not mentioning what I’m thinking of but everyone who’s been around here understood it I fear) then idk ask yourself a few questions and give yourself a few answers.

because I’m honestly fucking tired of americans-anything complaining about X media being problematic because it’s not representative enough for *their* needs and blaming it on cultural appropriation when the people from that actual culture don’t give a fuck.

other than that:

Asian-Americans ARE AFFECTED BY AN ALREADY IMPOSSIBLY TINY MARKET FOR ROLES

point taken, and then why every time I see a show with Asian-Americans in it or with Asians in parts that are their ethnicity or the likes no one on this shit hole of a website gives two fucks about it? I mean, idk, THE THREE FIRST THINGS THAT COME TO MIND:

marco polo. one white character (and they hired an Italian to play an Italian you don’t even know how happy we were everyone on italian tumblr watched it), everyone else in the cast had Asian heritage if they weren’t Asian tout-court, it was done fairly well, people didn’t even speak English all the time, canceled after two seasons while every other netflix show in existence gets renewed for at least three or four and on tumblr everyone was crying about OMG THERE’S A WHITE MALE LEAD (wow, italians are white…?) and who cares if everyone else was not white and had a+++ arcs/storylines.

the great wall. lol this one was amazing, y’all complained for months about white-saviorism and whitewashing even if IT WAS DIRECTED BY A CHINESE DIRECTOR WHO’S BEEN IN THE BUSINESS SINCE THE FUCKING EIGHTIES WHO USED CHINESE ACTORS OTHER THAN NOT AND SHOT IN CHINA, when it came out I’ve seen one post (ONE) by someone asian-american who said that actually it was a good movie and didn’t do any white-saviorism and the main character was actually a chinese woman who saved the day and wow, it tanked and none of y’all went to see it. (but when tumblr went up in arms about mad max fury road you all went even if it was mostly white actors, but that one was a feminist action movie and this one… apparently was not because matt damon was in it. okay.)

fresh off the boat. I’ve see gifsets from that show maybe thrice from people of asian heritage (tho I think a few lived in Europe) and a few posts like OMG IT’S A SITCOM JUST WITH ASIAN-AMERICANS DEFYING STEREOTYPES IT’S LOVELY WATCH IT. okay, have I seen the whole of tumblr supporting it? blah. no. it’s still on the air so I guess people watch it so yay for them but like, where’s the support for it? idk. never saw it. most probably never will.

bonus: the 1*00 has actually more non-whites (including asians) in its main cast but everyone wanks about it and wants to quit it when they kill off white characters and fuck me if I’ve been lurking in that fandom for a year or so and I only see people talking extensively about monty when discussing a non-canon ship he’s part of when in theory both him and the other party are otherwise engaged (and both canon ships get ignored hahahaha but we all want more interracial canon relationships right?). now that show is hardly perfect when it comes to *representation TM* (like monty and his mom are both asian-americans but from two different nations originally but WHATEVER) but I mean, support what you have so they do better after maybe??

extra bonus: it’s not a role it’s a cartoon but pls also go after people in the v*oltron fandom who are fixed on thinking that if you have two asian characters they have to be related somehow? anyway, nevermind.

I could also rant about how everyone on here hates c*lint eastwood and forgets he made gran torino (which had plenty hmong actors and was not at all racist actually all the congrary but who cares), or letter from iwo jima ie the least american-centered war movie I’ve ever seen (from americans) with all japanese actors (or japanese-americans) entirely shot in japanese, but who cares. I could rant about how every piece of media I consume that has canon well-written minority characters (not just asian-american) gets thoroughly ignored seven times on ten on this hellhole of a website, which is a thing that happens whatever y’all say.

I could rant about a lot of things, but just the fact that you say ‘WHO GIVES A FUCK ABOUT WHAT THE JAPANESE OR THE CHINESE OR THE KOREANS THINK ABOUT ADAPTATIONS FROM THEIR OWN MATERIAL BECAUSE EVERYTHING THAT MATTERS IS HOW IT AFFECTS US AMERICANS’ is making me fucking want to punch a mirror because y’all are going like

and honestly, it’s US-centrism all over again.

is there a problem with asian-american casting? sure. so WATCH THE THINGS WHERE THERE ARE ACTUAL GOOD ROLES FOR ASIAN-AMERICANS, ignore g*host in the shell if that’s what you want (honestly I don’t even give a fuck about that movie, I haven’t read the manga and I don’t even know if it’s actually racist or not and I don’t care because I don’t want to go watch it) and put your money where your mouth is and go support the things that actually give you what you want, because if you don’t then you’ll get stereotypes forever because majors won’t invest money in things that they know won’t return that fucking money. marco polo tanked? see when netflix comes up with another show with the same cast again. I doubt it will in the next five years or so. but whatever, I really doubt y’all give a fuck when you can have a few nice witch hunt and go against stuff that is popular or rant about how appropriative i*ron fist is when the chinese don’t particularly care about that either and when they haven’t whitewashed characters that weren’t originally, y’know, white. but okay.

people are going to be up in arms about roles for Asian characters being taken by white people 

fair, except that I’ve seen people suggesting l*ucy liu for that role as well. lucy liu has taiwanese origins. the character is japanese. if you want r*inko kikuchi then you have a point, if you want someone who’s not originally japanese to play the characters because they’re asian so it’s all the same…. do I have to finish the damned sentence or do we all get where I’m going at?

you’d also be upset at roles where your people get to be heroes, romantic leads and main characters getting twisted around to cast white actors because they are supposedly seen as more 'desirable’ and 'marketable’ than Asian-American actors

yeah, and every time I see a show or movie where asian characters are all that, as stated above, they tank or no one cares about that show or no one cares about that character.

putting your money where y’all mouth is, again? or should I remember the times people wanted the 1*00 to get canceled because a white lgbt character got killed when at the same time it has representation for a whole bunch of other groups including a canon interracial gay ship that no one gives a fuck about and a canon interracial het ship everyone hates because both go in the way of the interracial fanon m/m ship? (one of which is asian btw but lol as if I ever saw anyone advise ppl to watch the 1*00 because monty is in it. btw he’s a main character.)

Japanese natives doesn’t care because it doesn’t affect them and their careers.

given all of the above this is just so - so terribly��US-centric I don’t even know how to start to address it. hey, the japanese opinion about a movie made out of a japanese comic book/franchise is irrelevant because it doesn’t affect them. wow. almost sounds like, ‘we are pretending to care about your culture/your media being exploited by the americans (because yOU COULD TALK ABOUT AMERICANS REMAKING EVERYTHING IN AMERICANIZED WAY RUINING IT 90% OF THE TIME) but instead we just care as long as it affects us and if you disagree with us then fuck you’.

okay, then next time start fucking using the right terms. call it ASIAN-AMERICAN. CALL IT JAPANESE-AMERICAN. CALL IT CHINESE-AMERICAN. because whether y’all like it or not, japanese-american is not the same as japanese same as italian-american is not the same as italian, being american is part of your motherfucking identity and you have absolutely no right to impose it on others just because for some reason in the US there’s an identity culture that tends to reject the AMERICAN part of it and focuses on where you originally come from, and y’all pretending to be paladins of saving other cultures from so-called appropriation or from white people appropriating roles or whatever is honestly so ethnocentric I don’t even wanna know.

thanks and goodbye.

by the way, you know why everyone italian on tumblr watched marco polo with utter glee? because we’re sick tired of seeing that whenever an italian character is on any american media they’re ALWAYS criminals - like you have to hope they’re well-written criminals (ie: ASSHOLES) rather than badly written criminals, but guess why whenever they write well-written criminals the italian-americans go like OMG THAT’S NOT ACCURATE WE’RE NOT LIKE THAT (lol criminals are like that sadly) and then we end up getting cringy shit most of the time. and then when we get an actually decent character who’s not a criminal then there’s people like BUT IF HE WAS ITALIAN HE SHOULD BE A POC again superimposing american standards on us because lol obv. an italian character CAN’T BE PLAYED BY AN ITALIAN ACTOR BECAUSE HE’S NOT DARK ENOUGH ACCORDING TO YOU.

that’s all y’all sound when you complain about this shit and like idk if for people from asia it’s the same level of frustration or not but the moment you go like it doesn’t affect them it affects me when the franchise in question is not even fucking american you need to ask yourself how bad did your ethnocentrism get.

jfc.

also: I have to work in the afternoon and I already lost forty minutes replying to this thing while feeling progressively less inclined for nice discussion about the topic because I’m honestly sick fucking tired of US centrism on this blue hellhole so any wank coming out of this or whatever is not getting answered period because I have work to finish. bye for real now.

[janiedean]

Oh don't whine about muslim countries, they're poc countries, your little white brain cant judge them. In your very white countries, muslim people can be killed when your sitting on your atheist ass in all safety.

..... okay, you’re trolling. you have to be trolling.

that said, okay, sources?

because in my country, last time a refugee got killed because he was a refugee, he was christian and he just got married in a very Italian church. last I heard of dead muslims in Europe, you know who they were? either kamikaze killers or people killed by kamikazes.

of course, isis doesn’t kill muslims in the very muslim countries it’s currently occupying, and I can’t judge *poc* countries where the term poc isn’t even a thing because it works just in the united states of america?

anon, honest. you’re embarrassing yourself and any other religious person with a brain in this entire fucking planet. lol. my little white ass can’t judge poc countries? so I can’t say the japanese were fucking terrible during WWII when they killed 350.000 people in nankin in one month (more than both hiroshima and nagasaki together) and, like, literally ate prisoners of war alive because I’m white and they’re poc so what do I know of war crimes?

pls. also, all the dead atheists in muslim countries are poc, but you don’t care about those poc, can you?

and ah, wait, you meant the USA where muslims can be killed, huh? well, well, well, I’ll tell you, a) my country/continent is not the USA, b)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/26/atheist-discrimination-humanist-association_n_5531296.html

atheists are also discriminated in the USA, and c) in the USA you can get killed because you’re muslim but also if you’re... black, or native american, or a minority, so like, wow, congrats, you’re a minority. you know who else are minorities? christians in muslim countries! who also get killed by isis! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alon-benmeir/the-persecution-of-christ_b_13652002.html I mean, idk, maybe every place where there’s a non-secular society every religious minority gets killed and persecuted, too bad that in the US if you kill someone muslim it’s still a hate crime and you get arrested, in other places if you kill someone who’s not of the main religion it’s okay because by being anything other than that they’re committing blasphemy. but of course your precious divinity is totally okay with all of this, because their ways are mysterious! and I totally should buy that everything happens for a reason and I can’t presume to understand why someone who created me and should love me unconditionally along with everyone else lets people die like that or would hate gay people according to whoever presumes to read their mind and so on! because you all totally are right and we are wrong! and I can’t think that people dying because of what they don’t believe in or what they believe in is stupid and abhorrent because I’m white!

like. either stop trolling or get out of the house and go read the god delusion, it’d be great for you. <3 actually, really, read the god delusion. I beg you. and if I’m offending you by telling you to read dawkins, sorry man, I was told I lost count how many times that I should read the bible to realize what religion was really about, and I read both christian and protestant versions and it only convinced me that I was right <3 so if I could give the bible a chance, you can give good old richard a chance <3 and again, remember to go fuck yourself as you hopefully leave and never come back. <3