#west centrism

[chaberkowepole]

A post where a Westerner whines about people holding Russian culture accountable for their imperialism saying this is "dehumanising poor babushkas" or some bullshit bad-faith interpretation: 44'000 notes

Posts where Eastern Europeans detail, explain, tediously lay out the impact of imperialism on their lands and their discrimination in the West: 300 notes, mostly from other Eastern Europeans

Maybe it's that imperialist countries understand each other and would rather boost each other's voices :)

[whentheynameyoujoy]

Not only is the “Poland about to drag us into another world war, here we go” in and of itself massively unfunny but it yet again reveals our good ol’ friend anti-eastern xenophobia in assuming a) that the country is just some meme kingdom full of memeing edge peasants who obviously can’t be trusted to reasonably assess threats or take proportionate responses in view of ongoing developments, and b) that due to it being such a backwards hussar shithole it should have never been accepted into NATO because it’s this supposed irresponsibility that’s going to cause the war to escalate, leading much of the online pondscum to reveal how disgustingly glib they are about “some polacks dying”.

[menalez]

still find it annoying that westerners on here saw me talk about being dark-skinned, sth i am deemed in my country & have been literally physically abused for in the past, and they were like hmmm this woman is saying she’s a dark-skinned black woman… no… i’m saying i’m dark-skinned, and mixed race. two separate things. black bahrainis & part black bahrainis don’t have a culture of “dark skin black” etc.. ur either dark skinned or ur not, regardless of racial heritage. and there’s no comparison among black bahrainis either bc we view skin colour & heritage as entirely separate things. like even the visibly black bahraini women ive known (who in my experience are all dark-skinned by our standards. not necessarily western or african ones but by bahraini standards) would consider me dark-skinned and we would bond over that experience & understand what that word means. but westerners love to think they know everything about everywhere and place their standards on everyone ever and refuse to actually understand that we also have our own standards ig so to them me talking about being dark-skinned led them to believe that i’m claiming to have the same experience as idk lupita nyong’o. despite me repeatedly vocally differentiating my experiences from dark-skinned black women in places like the US…

i can never even discuss my experiences on here and state what i mean bc they will intentionally misconstrue it to fit their standards instead of just. understanding lol

[ohmystarsy]

oh yeah tankies getting more notes than Ukrainians talking about their first-hand experience of the war is what I love to see on tumblr dot com /s

[freesiakylian]

nothing to add

[1eos]

its crazy that popularity is solely centered on westerners on twitter. you could get a grammy but if babara from connecticut isnt getting 100k likes on a tweet abt you then automatically you’re a flop....

[spacelazarwolf]

Re: “culturally Christian” as a label for people.

Why not just say “goyim?” And if someone has an opinion rooted in Xianity, say “this opinion is rooted in Crain propaganda/mythology, historically”.

It solves the problems of the American centrism of the term, still deals with the issue of “the people this term applies to don’t deal with antisemitism as an axis of oppression,” does not immediately trigger people (or well, doesn’t trigger people who aren’t already a stones throw from being neo Nazis rather than just religious trauma survivors anyway) and doesn’t have the issue of demanding people who are already rejecting one religious framework of who they are accept your religion’s framework.

because “goyim” isn’t a synonym for “people who were raised christian or perpetuate christonormativity” or “people who don’t deal with antisemitism.” there are a lot of goyim who are not culturally christian, especially who don’t live in the west, and there are a lot of people who do deal with antisemitism who are culturally christian. to say that cultural christianity is “american centric” is to admit that you think christian hegemony and cultural christianity only exist and affect people in the us, which is very much not true.

and i’m gonna be honest, i think y’all’s fixation on semantics is rooted in reluctance to address what we’re actually talking about. you can say it’s about your trauma all you want (as if the people trying to have this conversation aren’t also traumatized both on a personal and communal/cultural level), but i’ve said over and over that your trauma isn’t your fault, it’s your responsibility. but you don’t want that responsibility, so i’ll be setting another boundary in that i will no longer be bickering with people about these semantics. future anons like this will be deleted. i do not have the time or energy for this.

[writerbuddha]

Not just a Star Wars issue?

In 2020, a vibrant, colorful video essay appeared on YouTube, titled, “The Lion King Explained: Let the Darkness In.” To summarize its main conclusions: Mufasa was fundamentally flawed and his flaws resulted in his death and the fall of his kingdom. He refused to see and confront evil, ill intentions and darkness. He gave no means to Simba to deal with his severe trauma, or to address the unpleasant, apart from pushing it away. This resulted in Simba repressing his emotions and running away. His naive refusal to confront ugly truths left his kingdom weak and untested. What's more, he is an absolute and even god-like monarch, thus Scar's anger over not being king echoes valid critiques of his society’s injustice and inequality. However, his only solution is hate, anger and destruction. Only Simba, the young, conflicted, new king is able to confront the darkness that his father explicitly refused and denied to do so, becoming a better, stronger king, addressing the injustice and inequality in Mufasa's kingdom.

And what is one of the most popularized reading of Star Wars today? The Jedi lost their way, they turned a blind eye to the fact that the Republic is ruled by an oppressive elite, they gave no means to Anakin to deal with his severe trauma, they taught him to repress his emotions, they feared and ignored the dark side of the Force. Anakin turned to the dark side due to the Jedi neglecting and mistreating his traumas and teaching him to push away his emotions. He actually had a point, so does the Sith, but they offered only hatred, anger and destruction as an answer. Thus, the Jedi contributed to their own demise, which was sad and largely undeserved, but necessary. Luke, after proving the old Jedi Masters wrong in their black-and-white morality and thinking, by embracing his emotions, confronting the dark side, reforms the Jedi Order, which is stronger, better, more equal and healthy than the old one.

Can we point out a pattern here?

The old and their old ways created problems like inequality and injustice due to their black-and-white morality and thinking inherent to them, and now they're unable and unwilling to address and solve them, which ultimately causes their demise. Then, a young hero arrives: the old are trying to get him to suppress his emotions and continue their old, flawed ways. This young hero is traumatized or otherwise struggling with their mental health, that the old are systematically neglecting or even contributing to it and leading to severe consequences. Meet our villain: they actually have a point, however, the hero shouldn't follow their footsteps, because all they offer is rage, destruction, hate and so on. It's only the young one, who can surpass both emotional repression and anger, hate and destruction, who corrects and educates the system, the old ways and the old ones. 

I start to think that what we witness is a "Gen Z narrative" starting to invade fandoms, drowning out all the original messages and lessons of these stories, replacing it with "Old = fanatic, bigoted, dogmatic, black-and-white and myopic, and Young = progressive, tolerant, spectrum-thinker, rationalist, updated" - people almost compulsively trying to locate this new trope in the movies and books they love, because they need this view validated, they need their ego boosted, even if this means ignoring the actual stories they allegedly "fans" of.

This narrative is often tangled with Western-centrism: what was unknown to the West, was unknown to the world as a whole, thus, the Gen Z Hero, equipped with Western psychology, philosophy, values and cultural and social costumes, is inherently superior, communicates new, never seen before, life-changing revelations to the previous generations, wherever they go. And this seem to attract certain millennials as well.

It started somewhere around the mid-2010s and now it peaks.

Where will this lead us?

[olderthannetfic]

The slur topic is a bit weird tbh, not because people are annoyed about certain terms sounding like or being alike, but because it forgets that certain slurs are particular to a specific place, and not everyone is going to know or even care to research because it has no relevance to them, or is even something that pertains to their social experience. Expecting everyone to adhere to specific rule of not using what is a "slur" in one place probably won't work, because of how different the understanding of language and personal social politics are. If a term has absolutely zero relevance where you live, and it's already tied to a different meaning a/b/o as a term for omegaverse, how should they ever connect the dots, or care to find out that someone from a different culture also uses that words as a slur? Why is a completely unrelated person suddenly guilty of the insults and slurs perpetuated by people of a different culture? And even just the awareness of it or the mind of it. Will people who ask this also respect not using slurs and terms of insults from other cultures? Or is this a thing only expected of people when it comes to anglospheric racially/sexuality/indentity charged insults and slurs? How many people think "colored" is an insult or a slur? In South Africa it's a description for, I quote "multiracial ethnic communities". The other name for the makrut lime, "kefir/kafir/kaffir/cafri" is considered a racial slur against black people in South Africa, yet it's still readily and openly used in recipes, videos, food guides. It also originated in Islam and was used against non-believers. Oriental has a big negative history in the West, and is considered a negative term, and degrading. Yet you can easily find a lot of Asian stores that use that specific term or tag to refer to items produced and sold in the global market. I think a big one is also for other Spanish speakers that the word "negro" for the color black is constantly being pointed at as a slur by people not speaking Spanish, but as a Spanish speaker myself it's literally just a color. Crayola could sing a song about the misunderstandings about their multi lingual labelling of their crayons. I remember a person from the West having a giant tantrum about an online stores url, "BiginJap" ranting about the fact that the "Jap" part, even though the store using it Big in Japan, is a literal japanese store, from Japan, selling Japanese products. Gypsie is considered a slur across a lot of Europe, if not most of it, I still see people argue that because "it's fine here in the US" they don't have to care about it and can just use it, even if they're not part of that group. Who's in the right here? The Roma and Sinti people or Europe? Or the people using the term in the US? I am not saying you can't criticize the use of these words, but I'm saying that to in a way or some form to consider the intent when they're used. To assume the worst, especially when the person does not share your culture, language, or awareness of your culture shows a degree of ignorance and personal cultural-centrism that just won't work on a global scale. You can say "this is a slur where I am" but whatever that means to anyone not part of your culture, is up to them by the end of the day, especially when it's meaning can wary so much.

--

No, in general, nobody expects anyone to care about anything to do with Australia. That's partly why people are irritated about this one: the difference between what everyone is expected to know about the US vs. Australia.

[wanderingmind867]

You know what? Despite hating how Rick Riordan made America "The Heart of the West" (something that bugs me for being so US-Centric), there's one thing we can agree on: LA is the place where the Underworld is. More appropriately, I think all the big cities in America demonstrate what the problem is. US-Centrism. If you don't go to Hollywood or NYC you can't be a star. No! I patently disagree. LA and NYC can burn up for all I care! They're seen as these pinnacles of the US being the land of the free, but it's all lies. Also, I don't hate people in LA or NYC. I don't, but I know I can't live there. It's too busy and big.

[whentheynameyoujoy]

My favourite part about being an eastern euro online is that I get to know the exquisite nuke-building pleasure of seeing Kyle from Ohio commit hard to the bit and supplement his "nooooo I don't want to be drafted to die in a nuclear world war nooooo why does this keep happening to meeee 😭" with "why should I die in a nuclear holocaust for two (2!) polack farmers 🤬".

Some of you are just bad people have you ever considered that

[dhillarearenn]

Australia, Albanese, and Palestine

Disclaimer: I am no journalist, just an activist. If any of this is incorrect or disinformation, let me know, provide a source, and I will edit the post with a cited correction. All quotes and information for this post can be found within the linked pages and articles.

OVERVIEW: Australia's PM, Anthony Albanese, and foreign minister, Penny Wong, have each made revoltingly spineless, centrist statements, condemning both Hamas and Israel, and offering only the most tokenistic of Palestinian support. These statements prompted our PM's home branch of Labour government to pass a unanimous motion urging him to call for a ceasefire. Australia previously stated it would no longer recognise West Jerusalem as Israel's capital, but it remains unclear whether the Labour government will honour its commitment towards recognising Palestine as its own state. So far, a federal call for a ceasefire has not been made.

On the 13th of November, Albanese's home branch, in the electorate of Grayndler, effectively called for a ceasefire in Gaza, openly condemning Israel's collective punishment of Palestine. The branch unanimously passed a motion urging Albanese and his administration to "utilise all avenues of diplomacy to stop the bombing", to acknowledge that Israel's actions have "moved from that of defending itself to acts of retribution on an innocent Palestinian population", and to recognise that Israel is in violation of international law.

This came in swift response to Albanese's address earlier that day, wherein he condemned "all violence" happening in Palestine. Regurgitating anti-Hamas propaganda, he referred to Hamas as terrorists, claimed that they are continually bombing Israel, and propagated the baseless lie that they use "human shields" (which is actually a crime committed by Israel). Penny Wong, Australia's foreign minister, went several steps further, branding Hamas as a "terrorist organisation" with the "stated aim" of the "destruction of Israel". This came with zero acknowledgement that Israel is, by its nature, an offensive presence in Palestine, and does not exist in a vacuum.

In this same statement, the PM urged a recognition of the difference between Hamas and Palestine, voicing his continual support for Palestinian people. Having his cake and eating it too, he additionally stated that Israel "does have a right to defend itself, but the way it does matters"; but that "[the world] must distinguish between Hamas and Palestinian citizens".

For any who are unaware, Albanese held a pro-Palestine stance well before he was PM [unfortunately, the only source for the video of him at a pro-Palestine rally is in a Sky News article, and I would much rather not give Murdoch any business]. Disappointingly, this seems to have shifted further towards a "both sides" style, pussyfooting centrism, likely for the sake political palatability. He maintains vocal support for Palestinian people, but will quickly undercut it with frantic disclaimers that Israel has the "right [to] defend itself".

The PM quickly and rightfully came under public fire for not condemning Israel more harshly, with a mass of protestors calling out his cowardice. Calling for an acknowledgement of the difference between Hamas and Palestine is noteworthy, as much of the IDF's propaganda relies on conflating the two to justify civilian slaughter, but it is not the same as calling for an actual ceasefire, nor is it helpful nor relevant to focus on Hamas when over ten thousand human beings have been murdered by Israeli forces. Additionally, Australia abstained from the October 2023 UN vote on an immediate humanitarian truce between Hamas and Israel, calling the non-binding resolution "incomplete", as it did not explicitly "recognise" Hamas as the perpetrators of the October 7 attack.

In June of 2022, a US-led statement calling for an end to the inquiry into Israel's occupation of Palestine was proposed at the UN, which Australia thankfully refused to sign, citing deep concerns for human rights abuse; though, in true cowardly fashion, a clarifying statement agreeing that Israel was under "disproportionate scrutiny" was made. In September of 2022, Wong announced Australia would double its $10 million contribution to the UN Relief and UNRWA to $20 million. Then, in response to the backlash against this decision, Wong stated, "Australia remains a strong supporter of a two-state solution, in which Israel and a future Palestinian state coexist, in peace and security, within internationally recognised borders. Viewing the Israeli-Palestine conflict from one perspective will not achieve that goal."

The following month, Albanese met with Nasser Mashni, the VP of the APAN (Australia Palestine Advocacy Network), to discuss Australia's stance on Gaza and Palestine. Within the week, an announcement that Australia would no longer recognise West Jerusalem as Israel's capital was made, reversing the Morrison government's decision regarding its recognition. While Mashni optimistically insists that Australia will recognise Palestine's statehood, going so far as to call it "a given", a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trades spokesperson said, quote, "Australia does not recognise a state of Palestine. We continue to call on all sides to resume negotiations towards a just and enduring two-state solution".

Mashni, after meeting with Albanese, said the following on the matter: "The Prime Minister and the Labor Party have spoken about the need to honour promises and the promise was to recognise Palestine."

A direct contradiction in our government's stance on any issue hardly comes as a surprise, but is disgusting and despicable regardless.

Recognition of Palestine as a state is instrumental in ending Israeli occupation.

Australia does not yet recognise Palestine as its own state, and is one of the few UN countries in that shameful category. It is unclear whether Labour will follow through on its commitment to do so, or whether they will actually agree to call for a ceasefire on a federal level, or just keep condemning "both sides" and ignoring Palestine's statehood.

Albanese continues dangling the carrot of Palestinian support in front of the Australian people, mourning the civilian deaths in Gaza and swearing the violence must end, then yanking it back with anti-Hamas disclaimers and backing Israel's "right" to "defend itself" against "terrorism". His flimsy stance seems to be that Israel, which he praised for its democracy, has now gone "too far", its slaughter and punishment of Palestinian people over Hamas no longer justified.

It was never justified to begin with. Israel is not a democracy, the two-state solution is a lie, and it was never about Hamas. The state of Palestine has been suffering a genocide for over seventy years.

Until our federal government calls for a ceasefire, acknowledges Israel's genocide against Palestine, condemns the ethnic cleansing being carried out in front of everyone's bloody eyes, or generally shuts the fuck up about Hamas, we will have no meaningful progress in Australia.

There is blood all over this man's idle, idle hands. Do not let him forget it.

Petition EN5622 - Call for a Ceasefire and End to Israeli Occupation (APH)

ACTION: Australia Must Condemn Israel's Attacks on Palestinians (APAN)

Further Reading (Tumblr)

[ohmystarsy]

I wish any post about literal war in Ukraine got so many notes here as a post about shitshow that is apparently British politics. like you lot don't want to have any uncomfortable thought EVER yet you think you are so morally above anyone else bc you excel in online discourse or sth and I'm done.

[gemsofgreece]

https://twitter.com/MetalClassicist/status/1651617079534182402?t=fBKwyAjyYlS0A3Zfe_iPhg&s=19

Came across this tweet that mentioned a book named Black Athena and that they talked about it on a classics thesis and i am like....why are discussing things about colour again?? What about ethnicity and basic things like historical records??

I am sorry, I gave up after reading almost half of the post. I went to goodreads to check the ratings of Black Athena. It has a rating of 4,12 / 5 and while almost a majority or at least half of the commentators attribute “irrational conclusions” and “wild leaps of logic” and “factual mistakes in the evidence” to the author, most rate the book highly because it is “thought-provoking” and challenges “white-centrism”. So they are rating high a scientific book with confirmed false information that they themselves point out!

According to a comment, the author claims Aristotle had stolen his philosophical work from the Library of Alexandria, but he apparently means Aristotle’s ghost, because Aristotle had died before the library was founded.

Another comment, coming from a pink guy from the north, for he was certainly more pink than white, like many of the self-claimed northern whites actually are, said that it was a good read that must be right because (modern) Greeks don’t look white to him anyway.

I just…

The Greek civilisation has long been stripped from its people. It has been denied its layers and its right to external influences, like all civilisations have, and which are more than normal for a civilisation existing for that long. Its closer descendants (if saying “rightful” makes you get the hives) have been marginalised, mocked and explicitly fought against, to the point that their input is rarely considered.

The irony is that most of these people unabashedly acknowledge the political motivations behind the classics studies that have overshadowed the research that is founded on pure investigation for an objective historical truth.

You have to understand that most of these people do not care about the Greeks, old or new. They have transformed the Greek civilisation into a status of superiority in their minds and thus try to claim it for the political interests they are involved with.

If they are white supremacists, then the first Greeks arrived to Greece from the northern steppes. If they are POC activists or woke whites fighting for the establishments of equal rights (most of whom are breastfed in the west too btw as actual eastern and indigenous POC people rarely have such insecurity in their cultural background), then the Greeks were POC or blacks coming from Africa first thing, whose fake whiteness had been inscribed by the white west for centuries.

The Greeks are anything the speaker wants them to be at any given time or according to the thesis they envision to write, except for ancestors of the current Greeks, not only for various reasons (modern Greeks are too white for POC and wokes’ tastes and too POC for the pink people’s tastes, much like the Ancient Greeks, I suspect) but most importantly because the existence of modern Greeks requires the acknowledgment of a realistic historicity that is not at all convenient to all these people and their aspirations to cement their political ideology or the ethnic / racial / cultural group they belong to as the superior one on the imaginary basis of an idealised and uncontested archetype.

[betterbemeta]

You know my biggest disapointment with breath of the wild was the Shiekah, they turned the VERY indian inspired group into bland ass ninjas and in the story that most revolves around the shiekah's agency that feels off, i suppose an indian group being servants of a european monarchy sucks but the erasure still leaves a bad taste in my mouth, what do you think?

I've never heard that the Sheikah were inspired by Indian art. Which does not mean it can't be a read-- I just haven't encountered it before. I WILL say that I noticed a LOT of architecture inspired by South Asia and India in Skyward Sword. But the dungeons and ruins in that game are rarely associated with a specific people, only 'the ancient past' and 'the goddess Hylia'. I wish we actually got confirmation that ancient Sheikah were associated with those ruins, rather than the only direct clue to Sheikah culture in that game being a time traveling exposition lady.

We had really few direct depictions of Sheikah architecture and customs before BotW, and in that game the 'ancient' Sheikah features were designed with the Jōmon period, the earliest known Japanese art and culture. The 'modern' Sheikah features were also very Japanese in aesthetic.

This kind of brings me to the point I want to bring up and reply to in your ask, which is that I take slight issue with the idea that Hyrule is a 'European monarchy.' I think it could be easy to read it that way where I live, because we tend to trust the aesthetics of stuff in a story to match up to locations in 'real life.' If we see a guy wielding a 14th century straight longsword we tend to assume the guy, within the bounds of style, is a medieval European dude. We don't expect him to lift his helm visor and reveal he's Japanese.

But for the same reason we look at anime characters and assume that many of them are probably intended to scan as Japanese to a Japanese audience, I think we need to extend that to Legend of Zelda. Even though the Hylian monarchy isn't wearing fashions that look Japanese, their nationalist myth throughout many games is set up to be extremely familiar to the domestic Japanese audience. Link and Zelda may be Blondes but the Sheikah analogs to a 'japan' themed culture are given white hair.

(Somebody else than me might have better insight into Anime Hair Colors.)

I live in the USA, 'the west', so by default narratives about imperialism and orientalism most accessible to me are going to assume whiteness and euro-centrism. But I feel it would be wrong to frame a piece of Japanese media as about whiteness, especially when it's clear that we can see the same type of stuff happen wherever racism and imperialism intersect.

There's only so much detail or nuance I can really have, given that I'm a white person in the anglosphere who's able to take Asian Literature in college, and Use Wikipedia, and Compare mythology, history, and news out of other countries to Video Games.

But yes, with all that said. It does put bad tastes in my mouth. Basically any depiction of entire cultures existing in some way to ensure a monarchy's security will do that, and the recent installment TotK extends to other fantasy races the horrible fate that has always been slapped onto the Sheikah: bound by an oath to serve Hyrule, Zelda and by extension, Link who paradoxically exists to both be the nation's tool but also the inheritor of everything in it.

[itsays]

"the west is never gonna take kpop seriously if groups like stray kids are the face of it" well sure. their music sucks. im sure xenophobia and us centrism and imperialism which extends to every aspect of culture and society have nothing to do with it though