#white supremacists in black skin

[ausetkmt]

Kanye West Slammed for Wearing ‘Dangerously Dumb’ White Lives Matter Shirt: ‘He Doesn’t Care About the Black Community’

Today Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, launched a surprise Yzy fashion show in Paris. The event was attended by celebrities like Beyoncé, Rihanna, Angelina Jolie, Lauryn Hill, Naomi Campbell, Emily Ratajkowski, Gisele Bündchen and Bella Hadid and featured a Sunday Service-style musical number that included a children’s choir (West’s daughter North West was among the singers).

But all that anybody can talk about is the controversial black sweatshirt Ye wore, which had a picture of the pope on the front and the words “White Lives Matter” on the back.

Online, there was immediate debate as to whether it was some kind of marketing stunt or just him trolling. And although Ye has a well-documented history of mental illness, he has also shown himself to, time and time again, promote extremely conservative values and ideologues, like him wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat and meeting with former president Donald Trump in an official endorsement.

Twitter quickly responded to his bizarre sartorial choice. In a since-deleted post, Jaden Smith denounced the move, saying that he can’t stand behind West’s choice and that “he does not have the full support of the youth.” The son of Will and Jada Pinkett Smith has left tweets up saying “Black Lives Matter” and “I Don’t Care Who’s It Is If I Don’t Feel The Message I’m Out.”

“Uphill” author Jemele Hill called the sweatshirt “dangerously dumb.” Writer Meecham Meriweather said, “Kanye SHOWS y’all and TELLS y’all he doesn’t care about the black community and yet and still y’all be right there at Sunday Service buying every GI Joe boot and every piece of raggedy fabric he drops.”

Many others pointed to an Instagram exchange between former professional basketball player Jack McClinton and producer and media personality Van Lathan, the latter of whom wrote eloquently of the “white supremacist notion” behind West’s sweatshirt slogan.

“We don’t need a reminder of the worth of white lives,” Lathan said. “America is a shrine to the worth of white people. This message is reactionary to a message affirming the worth of Black lives, which have never been worth anything in America. In its intent, it’s a white supremacist notion, because it posits that we can’t have a conversation about the worth of Black people without having a conversation about the worth of white people, which is fucking insane. The notion that it ALWAYS has to be about white people in America is incredibly frustrating, emotionally draining, and the whole problem. But here’s Kanye, apparently centering that notion.”

Temple University professor and BET host Marc Lamont Hill called the shirt “disgusting, dangerous and irresponsible.” And Rap TV pointed out that West and conservative pundit Candice Owens (who was famously against the Black Lives Matter movement) were wearing the same thing.

[seven-saffodils]

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[tautozhone]

friend was posting about how only ppl with the mindsets of white supremacy complain about forced diversity and i think something important it made me think of is how the narrative of diversity being “forced” can only exist because it came from the decades / centuries of western european white supremacy attempting to eliminate other skin tones from public perception and general good favor in society. id say i don’t need to remind people racism existed and still exists but some corners of this website proves i probably should.

basically: it literally only makes sense for any diversity to look forced if you realize the person complaining has likely never been in anything but primarily white spaces…. ones with white supremacist ideals… like very specifically…. they’re just perpetuating racism…….

[tariah23]

Why did I have a bad/good dream at the same time 🗣️… well, the only good part about the dream was that Megan and I became friends trapped in a subway and ended up duetting r&b songs 🥺.

[smallblueblondie]

Please stop ignoring that white supremacy is a huge core element of radfem/terf ideology.

Like yes they hyperenforce gender roles and stereotypes on all cis women, but it is primarily women of color that they target and accuse of being predatory and "not real women" when they're targeting cis women.

The metrics of "real woman vs trans woman" that terfs love to share are almost all just white eurocentric beauty standards. Small nose, thin fine hair, little/no body hair, petite but somehow curvy, hell I've even seen a post saying skin lightness is a determiner.

Terf/radfem circles are racist at their core. You cannot separate radical feminism from it's violently white supremacist roots. You can't have "anti-racist radical feminism", that's a fucking oxymoron. There is a very clean path from terfs to tradfems/tradwifes, to just straight up conservative republican women.

Yes yes always, terfs are super misogynistic. They hurt all women by forcing them back into the little impossible painful boxes that they claim they're fighting. But one of their biggest targets other than trans women is black women. Not to mention ignoring, discrediting, or just straight up trying to erase all the hard work that black trans women did for queer rights.

Radical feminism is very much transphobic, homophobic, and misogynistic. I'm not saying stop addressing it as such. Don't ever do addressing it as such!

But radical feminism is white supremacy in a coat of pink paint. Please never forget that when talking about how it hurts us all.

[snekdood]

at this point supposed leftists dont call people "white" bc they're making a critique on the privilege they might have in our white supremacist american society, no its a label for them so they can neatly sort ppl into boxes, they've adopted the label and they're fine with it. they say "white culture isnt real" but keep insisting "whiteness" is real.

[elbiotipo]

>wakes up

>someone is preaching about race to latinoamericans again

What's funny about this is, when talking on the US context, most of us are aware of race issues in the US, at least in the basics. We are raised with US media and news, and in this context in particular in tumblr, many of us are in 'fandoms' of US media too. So even if we haven't experienced it ourselves, we understand how racism presents itself in the US and we also understand it's a very diverse country. When we see a Hollywood movie with a cast of people of many different backgrounds, it makes sense to us. The US is big and diverse.

Which is also why it's so incredibly annoying when people from the US or elsewhere have such an ignorance about Latin America, or to be fair, any other place. We wouldn't think of calling the US a "white-only" country, or to judge the ancestry someone of the US by their skin tone. They feel perfectly comfortable and willing to do that to us, though. They feel perfectly comfortable to judge entire countries by their own narrow views on race (reinforcing racism itself, by the way). The fact that Latinos have different experiences and issues with race, ancestry, nationality and identity is seemingly arcane knowledge to them. I've seen people outright deny to me the existence of black or indigenous Argentines (a tactic used by our own white supremacists, so congratulations, you two are friends now!), being completely baffled at the existence of asian or arab latinos, and pulling skin tone charts and calipers on anyone who doesn't fit the racial boxes they think apply everywhere in the world.

It's very, very hard for me to wrap my head around this. How one can be so insistent that their own country is diverse and has complex nuances with regards to race relations, and then going the other way and judging whole countries or complete strangers without any attempt at understanding them. My only suggestion is that they perhaps should stop thinking that their experiences are universal.

[jackoshadows]

It's so confusing and weird that Bridgerton introduced in world racism both with Lady D and Simon in season one of the show and in Queen Charlotte and at the same time they also want the audience to accept that somehow Marina Thompson or the dark skinned Indian Kate Sharma has more privilege and power than Penelope Featherington?

Kate Sharma was also poor, so much more than the Featheringtons. She depended on Lady D to host them. The Sharmas were looked down on by the ton because Mary Sheffield married an Indian. The Sharmas were disowned and ostracized by the Sheffields.

Kate was also an unmarried spinster. No one was asking Kate to dance. As much as Kate wanted love and romance and to dance at a ball wearing pretty dresses, she got none of that. She was also the woman on the sidelines watching as others danced and fell in love.

Racism and colorism is also very much a thing in eurocentric notions of beauty considering the setting and characters of Bridgerton is 99% white.

We got so little of Kate's backstory, of who her parents where - we didn't even get their names!! - of the trauma (explained for both Simon and Anthony using flashbacks) that had Kate overlooking her own happiness for that of her sister.

Despite bragging nonstop about the diversity of Bridgerton the showrunners thought that the white Featheringtons needed more screentime in season 2 rather than the South Asian family.

And Kate was planning on going back to India and work as a governess to pay for her livelihood. Because, you know, there's more honest ways of being a 'working woman' than running the equivalent of the regency 'Daily Mail' dragging other women down. The modiste Madame Delacroix, Kate planning to teach and Sienna in season one are all working to pay a living. Black, brown and lower class women looking to alleviate poverty.

And considering how much harder Kate already had it as an outsider in the ton, it wouldn't have been easy with Penelope using her gossip rag to describe the unmarried Indian woman as ' a Spinster of a beast'. What did Kate do to Penelope to warrant this? Nothing. Just a way for Penelope to make money at Kate's expense.

That's the thing I dislike the most about the way the character of Penelope is written on the show - her victims don't deserve her vitriol and are often in much worse circumstances than her. From Kate Sharma to the unnamed seamstress who apparently lost all her customers because Penelope wrote falsely about their work in the her tabloid as a bribe for Madam Delacroix.

And I think that's what I find problematic about the writing of the show and even the discourse surrounding it - when characters like Marina Thompson (the poor black cousin who would have ended up destitute on the streets because of Penelope) and Kate Sharma arguably have it far worse than Penelope Featherington as per the show's writing and yet we are supposed to have the most sympathy for Penelope because her crush Colin didn't love her back and she's a curvy white woman?

I guess that's the difference between how I perceive this world and these characters as a woc and the majority white female audience for this show and it's such a huge disconnect for me. I guess this is also partly because the show has this badly written and 'strangely toothless racism' as Ash Sarkar beautifully put it. As in the racism is treated in this world as a little problem solved by handing out a few titles to black people instead of being a white supremacist ideology which treated black and brown people as inferior, serfs and slaves.

From what little we got from season 2, Kate Sharma definitely did not have it easy navigating the ton as a poor outsider and that certainly contributed to her poor choices. She is also put through the wringer, treated like the other woman, is miserable for several episodes, had to apologize again and again and nearly die before Edwina forgives her!

In contrast Penelope's actions have hurt so many and yet she gets a pass by both the show and a fandom that wants Colin to grovel before her because of a single offhand remark and because he didn't return her affections.

Also making it clear here that I am not comparing Penelope to the male characters who always get the better writing, flaws and all. I am comparing Penelope to the female characters of colour - Kate Sharma and Marina Thompson.

I mean, Marina Thompson gets so much vitriolic and sexist hatred for not having told Colin Bridgerton the truth of her pregnancy. How dare Marina hurt this privileged white man Colin Bridgerton. When she was desperate to not end up destitute on the streets or get raped by old white men. And yet Penelope gets a pass for hurting women like Marina and Kate.

It continues a trend of white female characters never being held to the same standard as female characters of colour. Daphne sexually assaults Simon in season one and that was not even addressed on the show. Male rape is apparently no big deal because Daphne wanting children is what's important. It's Simon who has to apologize and within one episode resolve his trauma and accept being a father. This is despite both Daphne and Penelope having more screentime and more writing that builds their character unlike the stick thin writing given to Kate Sharma in season 2.

So yeah, I will be checking into season 3 to watch the ten minutes we get with Kate Sharma since we got so little of her in her own season and it's so singular to get dark skinned south Indian characters in a period drama romance like this. It's just the way the writing on the show, the production and even the fandom treats it's characters, especially characters of colour has been disappointing to say the least.

[girlactionfigure]

Is Zionism white supremacy?

WHAT IS WHITE SUPREMACY?

White supremacy is the belief that white people are superior to all other races and should thus dominate them. 

Contemporary white supremacist ideology stems from the pseudoscientific antisemitic and anti-Black racial “science” that emerged in the seventeenth century. 

This racial “science” established the foundation for the Holocaust. 

WHAT IS ZIONISM?

Zionism is the national movement for Jewish self-determination in the Land of Israel, the ancestral homeland of the Jewish People. 

Self-determination is the concept that peoples who share a national identity — not to be confused with nationality — have a legal right to choose their own governance, rather than being forced into living under the thumb of an empire. Self-determination is a basic tenet of international law, applicable to all peoples. 

In 1897, Jewish delegates from across the world met for the First Zionist Congress. There, they defined Zionism in simple terms: “Zionism seeks to establish a home for the Jewish people in Eretz ­Israel [the Land of Israel] secured under public law.”

Zionism has absolutely nothing to do with race. Zionism is a movement for self-determination for all Jews, regardless of skin color. Early Zionists included figures such as Taamrat Emmanuel, who was an Ethiopian Jew. 

SCIENTIFIC RACISM, ANTISEMITISM, AND WHITE SUPREMACY

Antisemitism is foundational to white supremacy, but it is not exclusive to white supremacy. As the “world’s oldest hatred,” antisemitism predates both white supremacy and other forms of anti-minority bigotry. White supremacy built upon the already existing foundation of antisemitism. 

“Scientific racism” (also known as “biological racism”) is a pseudoscientific form of racism that claims there is scientific evidence to justify racial discrimination or the belief that some races are inferior or superior to others. Scientific racism reached its peak and “legitimacy” between 1870 and the end of World War II. The Nazis applied the theories of scientific racism to antisemitism, which in turn was one of the main factors that fueled the Holocaust. Today’s white supremacist ideology stems from scientific racism.

In the 1870s, Wilhelm Marr, a scientific racist and antisemite, coined the word “antisemitism” to replace the previously used term “Jew-hatred,” as “antisemitism” sounded scientific, which “legitimized” it (as in: “I’m an antisemite, not a Jew-hater!” Sound familiar?). 

There is no white supremacy without antisemitism. It’s absurd to describe the Jewish movement for self-determination as “white supremacy” when white supremacists themselves openly revile Jews (and Zionism). Marr, for example, said of Zionism, “the entire matter is a foul Jewish swindle, in order to divert the attention of the European peoples from the Jewish problem.” 

WHAT DO WHITE SUPREMACISTS THINK OF ZIONISM?

White supremacists, historically, have loudly opposed Zionism. As mentioned, Marr himself called Zionism a “foul Jewish swindle.” 

Arguably the most infamous white supremacist of all time, Adolf Hitler, wrote in his infamous manifesto, Mein Kampf, “For while the Zionists try to make the rest of the world believe that the national consciousness of the Jew finds its satisfaction in the creation of a Palestinian state, the Jews again slyly dupe the dumb Goyim. It doesn’t even enter their heads to build up a Jewish state in Palestine for the purpose of living there; all they want is a central organization for their international world swindle…”

Before, during, and after the Holocaust, the Nazis worked to prevent a Jewish state from establishing. The Nazis supported Palestinian Arab nationalists, most notably the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, in material ways. In November of 1933, the Nazis revealed that they had established a direct contact with the Arab leadership in Palestine, with the hopes of “adapting the Nazi program” to the Holy Land. 

Between 1936-1939, the Arabs in Palestine revolted against the British and Jewish immigration, killing some 500 Jews. The British quickly suspected Nazi involvement, noticing that the Arab rioters carried smuggled Nazi weaponry. The Jerusalem police found that the Arabs had received 50,000 pounds from Germany and 20,000 pounds from Italy. The British also suspected the Germans of planning the 1938 pogrom in Tiberias.

In November of 1941, al-Husseini met with German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and with Hitler himself. Hitler promised al-Husseini that once the German troops reached the Arab world, “Germany’s objective would then be solely the destruction of the Jewish element residing in the Arab sphere…”

In 1957, a top secret document came to light, which revealed that Germany and Italy recognized the right of the Arabs to “solve the Jewish question” in Palestine and other Arab nations. During the meeting, Hitler told the Mufti: “Germany is resolved, step by step, to ask one European nation after the other to solve its Jewish problem, and at the proper time to direct a similar appeal to non-European nations as well.”

Between 1948-1949, 1000 former Bosnian Muslim SS members joined the Palestinians in their fight against the Jews.Hundreds of members from the 13th and 23rd SS Divisions volunteered as well.

In early 1948, 30,000 army veterans from various fascist forces created an army known as Black International. Some of the members included Nazi soldiers, a pro-Nazi renegade Soviet battalion, and pro-Nazi Poles and Yugoslavs, as well as the Muslim members of a brigade that al-Husseini had organized to fight alongside the Nazis. Black International attacked Jewish towns and kibbutzim.

A source close to the group commented: “These Poles, Russians, Germans and Yugoslavs…are the Arabs fighting for national liberation…Actually their cynical joy is unbounded at the double gift which has been handed them — the opportunity to butcher Jews, and get paid for it.”

After the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel, white nationalists have continued to oppose Zionism. In 1976, an American neo-Nazi, Eric Thomson, used the term “Zionist Occupation Government,” alleging that Zionist organizations, working on behalf of an international Jewish conspiracy, are controlling foreign governments. The “ZOG” conspiracy remains popular among white supremacists and white nationalists. 

Just as Hitler once did, neo-Nazis have continued colluding with Palestinians in their quest to destroy Israel. In 1972, the Palestinian terrorist organization Black September carried out a massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. Black September had enlisted the help of two notorious German neo-Nazis, Willi Pohl and Wolfgang Abramowski, to carry out the attack, though apparently the neo-Nazis were unaware of their exact plans.

Specifically, Pohl aided Abu Daoud, the mastermind behind the Munich Massacre, by helping him obtain forged passports, credentials, and other documents. Even worse, he helped Daoud obtain weapons. According to Pohl himself, “[I] drove Abu Daoud around Germany, where he met Palestinians in various cities.”

Former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke, openly reviles Zionism. He’s made statements such as “the only Nazi country in the world is Israel,” echoing the sentiments of many Islamists and those on the far left today. Just recently, David Duke, along with fellow white supremacists Nick Fuentes and Jake Shields, met with a number of pro-Palestinian influencers. Duke also coined the antisemitic slur “Zio,” now popular among many in the pro-Palestine crowd. 

THE ZIONISM IS RACISM LIBEL

In 1969, the United Nations passed the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Both the United States and Brazil wanted to add a clause including antisemitism. The Soviet Union, which had been heavily oppressing its Jewish population since the 1950s, worried that such a clause would be used to rebuke them for persecuting Soviet Jews. As such, they included a counter proposal, which was a clause that equated Zionism to Nazism. That way, they could say that they were (rightfully) anti-Zionists, not antisemites.Neither clause passed.

But the Soviets were never covert about the fact that their “anti-Zionism” was actually just antisemitism. In the 1960s, Soviet propaganda made blatantly antisemitic claims, including: “The character of the Jewish religion serves the political aims of the Zionists,” “Zionism is inextricable from Judaism, rooted in the idea of the exclusiveness of the Jewish people,” comparisons of Judaism to the Italian mafia, and claims that Israel was merely a means to an end of Jewish imperialism and world domination.

On November 10, 1975, on the 37th anniversary of the Nazi pogrom of Kristallnacht, the United Nations, headed by the Soviet Union, Soviet satellite states, and over countries in the Arab League, passed Resolution 3379, declaring Zionism a form of racism. Absurdly, the resolution never defined Zionism, nor did it explain, how and why, exactly, Zionism is a form of racism. In fact, the delegate for Liberia stated that, while reading the resolution, he “anxiously waited” to see a definition for Zionism, and an explanation as to how Zionism is racism. Since he found no such thing, he voted against it. 

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia all but admitted that Resolution 3379 had been nothing more than a Cold War propaganda ploy, calling it “a relic of the Ice Age.” In December of 1991, UN Resolution 46/86 revoked Resolution 3379. But while Resolution 3379 was repealed, the dark shadow of its legacy lingers.

THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT IS NOT ABOUT RACE

Many people in the west, particularly in the United States, only understand oppressor-oppressed dynamics through the lens of race and white supremacy. Given the history of their country, that makes sense. Many anti-Israel activists are weaponizing this ignorance by framing the Israelis in the conflict as the “white people” and the Palestinians as the “people of color.” For example, in 2021, Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7 massacre, compared himself and the Palestinian people to George Floyd in an interview with Vice News. Another example? Various anti-Israel groups have been pushing the “Deadly Exchange” conspiracy theory, falsely alleging that Israel is behind police brutality in America. 

Unfortunately, many people are falling for it. But what they don’t realize is that they are projecting their own experience of the world onto a drastically different region of the world, where the dominant force of oppression is not white supremacy but Islamist fundamentalism. 

Palestinians and Israeli Jews are both Middle Eastern people, with Middle Eastern ancestry, belonging to Middle Eastern cultures. The majority of Israeli Jews are Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews, whose ancestors spent many, many centuries continuously in the Middle East and North Africa. Ashkenazi Jews, whom many people incorrectly dub “European Jews,” can trace their genetic ancestry to Israel, have practiced a Middle Eastern culture for thousands of years, and were considered “Asiatic foreigners” for the centuries during which they were exiled to Europe.

Of course, racism and anti-Blackness exist in Israel. But they exist in the Palestinian Territories, too. Afro-Palestinians first arrived to what are now Israel and the Palestinian Territories via the Arab slave trade. The Arab slave trade laid the groundwork for the transatlantic slave trade most of us are familiar with; in other words, they established the routes.

Before October 7, some 11,000 Afro-Palestinians resided in the “Al Abeed” neighborhood in Gaza, translating, quite literally, to “slaves.” They are also derogatorily referred to as “abeed,” meaning slaves. This conflict is not between two different races, but between two opposing national movements.

MAIN SOURCES

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[icedsodapop]

White journalism has mostly been utterly rubbish at covering the recent controversy between Jasmine Crockett and Marjorie Taylor Greene, writing about the incident as two women who derailed a meeting when they hurled appearance-based insults at each other, not understanding that what Greene, a literal white supremacist, was doing by commenting on Crockett's fake eyelashes affecting her work, was actually implying that Crockett's appearance was unprofessional and therefore, incompetent. The appearances of Black and Brown women are often scrutinised and they are penalized for not adhering to standards rooted in white supremacy.

Here's a written account by a Black woman:

I looked up to find a critical mass of Black women excitedly converging upon my interview station. Forming a half circle around my table, they began exclaiming how enamored they were by my appearance and how it countered much of the counseling they had received on how to appear “professional” and “look like a lawyer.” They emphatically discussed the damage and financial expense they incurred to straighten and subdue their naturally coiled, gravity defying hair to appear “polished” and “professional” for their interviews. They shared how they spent several hours in several stores seeking a skirt suit that would complement their figure, but not emphasize or unveil their curves, and were ultimately forced to splurge on a tailor to appear feminine and physically appealing without being hypersexualized, since the average suit is not designed to fit their body type. They were told to wear these skirt suits with “flesh toned” stockings and “nude” makeup for a “polished” but “professional” look, and reflected upon their frustration running up and down retail aisles seeking “flesh tones” and “nude” colors that actually matched their complexion, since the “darkest” shade of most products still only reflect the darkest tone of white or light skin. They looked at me, a visibly Black woman with brown skin, wearing bold gold earrings, a large naturally curly afro, bright colored fitted pant suit, and bare-face except for a bright red lip, and questioned whether it might be possible to enter the legal profession without having to leave elements of their Black womanhood behind.

[ausetkmt]

Black Tik Tok Just Found Out That Samoans Have An Anti-Black Slur

[ftmtftm]

I've been scrolling through your blog, and I saw your post about discussing the racialized nature of gender. As someone who has several transmasc POC friends, and someone who's a nonbinary POC themself, I wanted to give my 2 cents.

It's important to understand that "woman" in the "man vs woman" gender binary is a colonialist, white supremacist construct, especially in Western countries where you are the numerical minority. My trans friends aren't on T, they haven't gotten top surgery, we are all quite young. But they all have numerous stories about being addressed as "sir" which brings them euphoria but as one person said, while we were making fun of the amount of white people in our club, "Due to my race and skin color, I get masculinized."

And again I'd like to emphasize, that since we're young, none of us really have medically transitioned due to financial and familial barriers. Their hair is long, our binders we definitely have notable chests, and even if they dress masculine, it's notable that no one in our communities would ever gender us properly. It's often white people calling them "sir." Again, I think this reflects how gender performances in mainstream queer communities are deeply White. Like, trans boys talk about having haircuts, but only one of my friends has that wavier, more manageable hair that will help them pass. When you've got curly/kinky hair, the standards are different. For a white person, what's the difference between a "girl" Afro and a boy "Afro"? White cis people have a harder time identifying us, and literally talk to any black girl, and they'll tell you about being mocked, dehumanized, and called "manly".

I don't have much else to say. These are just my personal experiences. But if you want to be an ally to POC in the queer community, this is why it's so fucking important to bring in colonialism/imperialism/white supremacy into discussions of queer liberation. My biggest gripe with ignorant white queers is when they ignore their white privilege, and act like "cishets" (AKA the patriarchal system regulating sexuality and gender) is the only enemy. Because cishet POC deal with plenty of shit with being infantilized, masculinized, feminized, seen as brutish & dangerous, the list goes on. Doberbutts had a post saying, "Believe me, your family's going to care more about me being black than my queerness." towards his white partners. Acknowledging and creating a framework that centers these intersections of queerness and race into your beliefs is true allyship. This is why if you're not anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, ACAB...I do not think you care for queer liberation. None of us are free until all of us are free.

Please don't view this post as an attack. But this is my perspective, and I thought you'd be receptive to me sharing my lived experiences.

Oh I absolutely don't view this ask as an attack, and I really appreciate you bringing these things up because you're right! Like, just very plainly: You are right and your and your friends lived experiences are extremely important to the conversation on the racialized aspects of gender.

It gets me thinking about where Misogynoir and the social White Fear of Black manhood intersect for Black trans men in particular. Because Black women and Women of Color in general are masculinized by White gender standards and the ways in which Black trans masculine people are gendered in alignment with their identity is absolutely not always done with gender affirming intent. In fact, it's often actually done with racist intent or is fueled by racist bias when it's coming from White people or even from non-Black POC.

That's kind of restating things you've said but differently, it's just such a topic worth highlighting explicitly since it's extremely relevant to the conversation that's been happening about Male Privilege here the last few days.

I do think I know exactly what @doberbutts post you're talking about and yeah. It's just truth. It's something Black queer people have been talking about for ages in both theory and in pop culture (my mind immediately goes to Kevin Abstract and "American Boyfriend") where Black queer/trans identity is both materially different from (neutral) and is treated differently from (negative) White queer/trans identity in multitudes of ways and those differences are worth sharing and exploring and talking about.

Genuinely, thank you for sharing! I try really hard not to lead these kinds of conversations outside of explicitly referencing back to non-White theorists because I don't particularly feel like it's my place to do so, but I will always provide a platform for them because they're extremely important conversations to be had.

[victoriadallonfan]

One of the things I think about a lot in the Worm fanfic part of the community, is that someone once made up the idea that Purity triggered because some minority person mugged her or attacked her.

And a lot of people bought into that, despite:

A.) We know her trigger event. She was trapped after a car crash and nearly starved/dehydrated to death

B.) It’s a classic baby step of white supremacist narrative. “I’m not racist, I just have a traumatic past with X minority group and they made me this way!”

Reminds me of this - at the time - enjoyable series about an male MC who was dealing with the fact that both of his friends (boy and girl) had a crush on him.

Things turned sour for me when the boy was outed as gay to the school and his best friend on the baseball team insults and berates him for trying to act like a “normal kid”.

Later, they friend explains that he’s not homophobic, he’s just dealing with the fact that a family friend assaulted him as a child, so thinks being gay is not normal.

And the narrative supports this!

There’s so many damn things wrong with both scenarios that I don’t even know where to start!

In the context of Worm fandom though, I worry that it’s a sign of how ingrained white supremacist users are in the community, and speaking as someone who’s dealt with kicking them out of forums because they tried to recruit people (or couldn’t hide how much they hated anyone who wasn’t the right shade of light skin), it’s not the only sign.

Not as dramatic as the user who refused to believe Coil was black (because he “talks white”) and threw a tantrum when he was proven wrong, but more insidious for sure because few people in this fandom fact check.

[spacelazarwolf]

I meant that I was taught to treat Judaism as an ethnicity thank you for being patient with me (I probably could have just used POC but I'm black and was just recalling what I was taught)

jews are an ethnic group, yes! i have a whole post explaining why jews fit the definition of an ethnic group here.

we are not a race, so i guess the best way to explain it would be that we are a multi racial ethnic group that historically has not been granted whiteness. in modern day america, many of us are granted privilege/and or safety because we can pass as white. when the police stop me, i’m likely going to have a very different experience than a black person, but the whiteness assigned to me by a police officer is not going to be assigned to me by a white supremacist who wants to shoot up my synagogue or by someone who sees my “ethnic looking” religious attire and decides it would be a hassle to hire me. it’s kind of like the way east asians tend to face less colorism than darker skinned asians in america but there are still very specific kinds of racism directed at them, often the “model minority” trope which is something jews face as well.

[dresshistorynerd]

European history is not white

Someone commented this to a post I reblogged, which message is basically "we shouldn't venerate the Dead White Man HistoryTM and we should elevate other history too, but we still need to learn Dead White Man HistoryTM to understand the world today". It's basically a response to the attitude you sometimes come across in the internet that sees learning about those Dead White MenTM as not worth our time. And this person, who seems to be following this blog because they responded to my reblog, takes it as a personal attack against all white Europeans. For some reason. Well I take these comments as a personal attack against historical understanding.

Firstly, the post clearly didn't say you shouldn't venerate any European history, because not all European history is Dead White Man HistoryTM. Obviously this person thinks European history is white, which is not true, but surely, surely, they know it's not all men? Secondly, what is "west culture"? When did it start? There is not one western culture, not one European culture. The first concept of some shared Europeanness was the Christendom in Middle Ages, but it was not exactly the same as we think of Europe today, because it did not include the pagan areas, but it included a lot of Levant and parts of Central Asia, where there were large Christian areas. And Europe was not "very white" nor was the Christendom. The more modern concept of West was cooked in tandem with race and whiteness during colonial era and Enlightenment, around 17th to 18th centuries. And Europe was certainly not very white then. The western world also includes a lot of colonized areas, so that's obviously not white history. Thirdly, implying that asking white people to apologize for European history (which no one did ask) is as ridiculous as asking black people for African history is... a choice. Black people do exist in a lot of other places than Africa, which white people should be the ones apologizing for, and really white people also have a lot to answer for about African history. Lastly, if you think the quote "anyone who thinks those dead white guys are aspirational is a white supremacist" means you as an European are demanded to apologize for your existence, maybe - as we say in Finland - that dog yelps, which the stick clanks. (I'm sorry I think I'm the funniest person in the world when I poorly translate Finnish sayings into English.)

The thing is, there is no point in European history, when Europe was white, for three reasons. 1) Whiteness was invented in 17th century and is an arbitrary concept that has changed it's meaning through time. 2) Whichever standard you use, historical or current, Europe still has never been all or overwhelmingly white, because whiteness is defined as the in-group of colonialists, and there has always been the internal Other too. In fact the racial hierarchy requires an internal Other. 3) People have always moved around a lot. The Eurasian steppe and the Mediterranean Sea have always been very important routes of migration and trade. I've been meaning to make a post proving exactly that to people like this, since as I've gathered my collection of primary images of clothing, I've also gathered quite a lot of European primary images showing non-white people, so I will use this opportunity to write that post.

So let's start from the beginning. Were the original inhabitants of Europe white? Of course not. The original humans had dark skin so obviously first Europeans had dark skin. Whenever new DNA evidence of dark skinned early Europeans come out (like this study), the inevitable right-wing backlash that follows is so interesting to me. Like what did you think? Do you still believe the racist 17th century theories that white people and people of colour are literally different species? I'm sure these people will implode when they learn that studies (e.g. this) suggest in fact only 10 000 years ago Europeans had dark skin, and even just 5 000 years ago, when Egypt (an many others) was already doing it's civilization thing, Europeans had brown skin (another source). According to the widely accepted theory, around that time 5 000 years ago the Proto-Indo-European language developed in the Pontic-Caspian steppe, which extends from Eastern Europe to Central Asia. These Proto-Indo-Europeans first migrated to Anatolia and then to Europe and Asia. Were they white? Well, they were probably not light skinned (probably had brown skin like the other people living in Europe around that time), the Asian branch of Indo-European peoples (Persians, most Afghans, Bengalis, most Indians, etc.) are certainly not considered white today and a lot of the people today living in that area are Turkic and Mongolic people, who are also not considered white. I think this highlights how nonsensical the concept of race is, but I don't think Proto-Indo-Europeans would have been considered white with any standard.

Around Bronze Age light skin became common among the people in Europe, while in East Asia it had become wide spread earlier. This does not however mark the point when "Europe became white". During the Bronze Age there was a lot of migration back and forth in the Eurasian steppe, and the early civilizations around Mediterranean did a lot of trade between Europe, Africa and Asia, which always means also people settling in different places to establish trading posts and intermarrying. There were several imperial powers that also stretched to multiple continents, like the briefly lived Macedonian Empire that stretched from Greece to Himalayas and Phoenicians from Levant, who didn't built an empire but settled in North Africa, Sicily and Iberia. In Iron Age the Carthaginian Empire, descendants of Phoenician settlers in current Tunisia, build an Empire that spanned most of the western Mediterranean coast. Their army occupying that area included among others Italic people, Gauls, Britons, Greeks and Amazigh people.

Iron Age also of course saw the rise of the Roman Republic, and later empire, but it was preceded by Etruscans, who populated Tuscan, and possibly preceded the Indo-European presence. However, weather through trade and migration with other Mediterraneans or the continuing presence of darker skin tones of the early Europeans, their art quite often depicts darker skin tones too, like seen below in first two images. Roman Empire at it's height spanned from Babylonia to the British Isles. They recruited soldiers from all provinces and intentionally used stationed them in different areas so they wouldn't be too sympathetic to possible rebels or neighboring enemies. Historical sources mention black Nubian soldiers in British Isles for example. They also built a lot of infrastructure around the empire to ensure protection and easy transportation through trade routes inside the empire. During this time Jewish groups also migrated from Levant to both North-Africa and Europe. Rome even had non-European emperors, like Septimius Severus who originated from Levant and was Punic (descendants of Phoenicians) from his father's side, and who was depicted with darker skin (third picture below). Various ethnicities with differing skin tones are represented all over Roman art, like in the fourth picture below from hunting lodge in Sicily.

Eurasian steppe continued to be important source of migration and trade between Europe and Asia. Scythians, Iranic nomadic people, were important for facilitating the trade between East Asia and Europe through the silk road during the Iron Age. They controlled large parts of Eastern Europe ruling over Slavic people and later assimilating to the various Slavic groups after loosing their political standing. Other Iranic steppe nomads, connected to Scythian culture also populated the Eurasian steppe during and after Scythia. During the Migration Period, which happened around and after the time of Western Rome, even more different groups migrated to Europe through the steppe. Huns arrived from east to the Volga region by mid-4th century, and they likely came from the eastern parts of the steppe from Mongolian area. Their origins are unclear and they were either Mongolic, Turkic or Iranic origin, possibly some mix of them. Primary descriptions of them suggests facial features common in East Asia. They were possibly the nomadic steppe people known as Xiongnu in China, which was significant in East and Central Asia from 3rd century BCE to 2nd century CE until they moved towards west. Between 4th and 6th centuries they dominated Eastern and Central Europe and raided Roman Empire contributing to the fall of Western Rome.

After disintegration of the Hun Empire, the Huns assimilated likely to the Turkic arrivals of the second wave of the Migration Period. Turkic people originate likely in southern Siberia and in later Migration period they controlled much of the Eurasian steppe and migrated to Eastern Europe too. A Turkic Avar Khagenate (nation led by a khan) controlled much of Eastern Europe from 6th to 8th century until they were assimilated to the conquering Franks and Bulgars (another Turkic people). The Bulgars established the Bulgarian Empire, which lasted from 7th to 11th in the Balkans. The Bulgars eventually adopted the language and culture of the local Southern Slavic people. The second wave of Migration Period also saw the Moor conquest of Iberia and Sicily. Moors were not a single ethnic group but Arab and various Amazigh Muslims. Their presence in the Iberian peninsula lasted from 8th to 15th century and they controlled Sicily from 9th to 11th century until the Norman conquest. During the Norman rule though, the various religious and ethnic groups (which also included Greeks and Italic people) continued to live in relative harmony and the North-African Muslim presence continued till 13th century. Let's be clear that the Northern Europe was also not white. Vikings also got their hands into the second wave migration action and traveled widely to east and west. Viking crews were not exclusively Scandinavians, but recruited along their travels various other people, as DNA evidence proves. They also traded with Byzantium (when they weren't raiding it) and Turkic people, intermarried and bought slaves, some of which were not white or European. A Muslim traveler even wrote one of the most important accounts of Vikings when encountering them in Volga.

By this point it should already be clear that Medieval Europe was neither white, but there's more. Romani people, who originate from India and speak Indo-Aryan language, arrived around 12th century to Balkans. They continued to migrate through Europe, by 14th century they were in Italy, by 15th century in Germany and by 16h century in Britain and Sweden. Another wave of Romani migration from Persia through North-Africa, arrived in Europe around 15th century. Then there's the Mongol Empire. In 13th century they ruled very briefly a massive portion of the whole Eurasian continent, including the Eastern Europe. After reaching it's largest extent, it quickly disintegrated. The Eurasian Steppe became the Golden Horde, but lost most of the Eastern-Europe, except Pontic-Caspian Steppe. They ruled over Slavs, Circissians, Turkic groups and Finno-Ugric groups till early 15th century. The Mongolian rulers assimilated to the Turkic people, who had been the previous rulers in most of the steppe. These Turkic people of the Golden Horde came to be known as Tatars. Golden Horde eventually split into several Tatar khagenates in 15th century, when the khagenates, except the Crimean Khagenate, were conquered by the Tsardom of Moscovy. Crimean Khagenate was annexed by the Russian Empire in 1783. Crusades were a movement from Europe to Levant, but they also meant intermarriage in the the Crusader kingdoms especially between the European and Levant Christians, and some movement back and froth between these kingdoms and Europe, trade and a lot of movement back after the Crusader kingdoms were defeated in 13th century. Generally too trade across the Mediterranean sea was extensive and led to migration and intermarriage.

And here's some example of people of colour in Medieval European art, shown as part of the majority white European societies. First is from a 15th century French manuscript depicting Burgundy court with dark skin courtier and lady in waiting. Second one is from a Flemish manuscript from 15th century of courtiers, including a black courtier, going for a hunt. Third is a 15th century Venetian gondolier with dark skin.

In Renaissance Era Europe was only increasing it's trade and therefore had even more connections outside Europe. The first picture below is Lisbon, which had strong trade relationship with Africa, depicted in late 16th century. People with darker skin tones were part all classes. Second image is an Italian portrait of probably a seamstress from 16th century. Third one is a portrait of one of the personal guards of the Holy Roman Emperor. Fourth image is a portrait of Alessandro de' Medici, duke of Florence, who was noted for his brown complexion, and the modern scholarly theory is that his mother was a (likely brown) Italian peasant woman.

Colonialism begun in the Renaissance Era, but the wide spread colonial extraction and slavery really got going in the 17th century. Racial hierarchy was developed initially to justify the trans-Atlantic slave trade specifically. That's why the early racial essentialism was mostly focused on establishing differences between white Europeans and black Africans. Whiteness was the default, many theories believed humans were originally white and non-whites "degenerated" either through their lives (some believed dark skin was basically a tan or a desease and that everyone was born white) or through history. Originally white people included West-Asians, some Central-Asians, some North-Africans and even sometimes Indigenous Americans in addition to Europeans. The category of white inevitably shrank as more justifications for atrocities of the ever expanding colonial exploitation were required. The colonial exploitation facilitated development of capitalism and the industrial revolution, which led to extreme class inequality and worsening poverty in the European colonial powers. This eventually became an issue for the beneficiaries of colonialism as worker movements and socialism were suddenly very appealing to the working class.

So what did the ruling classes do? Shrink whiteness and give white working classes and middle classes justifications to oppress others. Jews and Roma people had long been common scapegoats and targets of oppression. Their oppression was updated to the modern era and racial categories were built for that purpose. The colonial powers had practiced in their own neighborhoods before starting their colonial projects in earnest and many of those European proto-colonies were developed to the modern colonial model and justified the same way. In 19th century, when racial pseudoscience was reaching it's peak, Slavs, others in Balkan, the Irish (more broadly Celts), Sámi (who had lost their white card very early), Finns, Southern Italians, the Spanish, the Southern French and Greeks all were considered at least not fully white. The Southern Europeans and many Slavs were not even colonized (at least in the modern sense, though with some cases like Greeks it's more complicated than that), but they looked too much and were culturally too similar to other non-white Mediterraneans, and they were generally quite poor. In many of these cases, like Italians, the French and Slavs, it was primarily others belonging in the same group, who were making them into second class citizens. All this is to highlight how very malleable the concept of race is and that it's not at all easy to define the race of historical people.

However, even if we would go with the racial categories of today, Europe was still far from being all white in this period. You had Roma, who certainly are not included in whiteness today, and European Jews, whose whiteness is very conditional, descendants of Moors in Southern Europe and Tatars and Turks in Eastern Europe and Turkey, which today is often not thought of as part of Europe, but historically certainly was. And then colonialism brought even more people into Europe forcibly, in search of work because their home was destroyed or for diplomatic and business reasons. There were then even more people of colour, but they were more segregated from the white society. Black slaves and servants are very much represented in European art from 17th century onward, but these were not the only roles non-white people in Europe were in, which I will use these examples to show. First is a Flemish portrait of Congo's Emissary, Dom Miguel de Castro, 1643. Second is a 1650 portrait of a Moorish Spanish man Juan de Pareja, who was enslaved by the artist as artisanal assistant, but was freed and became a successful artist himself. Third is a 1768 portrait of Ignatius Sancho, a British-African writer and abolitionist, who had escaped slavery as a 20-year-old. Fourth painting is from 1778 of Dido Elizabeth Belle, a British gentlewoman born to a slave mother who was recognized as a legitimate daughter by her father, and her cousin. The fifth portrait is of an unknown woman by (probably) a Swiss painter from late 18th century. Sixth is a 1760s Italian portrait of a young black man.

In late 18th century England abolished slavery in British Isles first, then in early 19th century in the whole British Empire, thanks to the continuous campaign of free Black people and some white allies, notably Quakers. Around the same time slavery was abolished in France (briefly till Napoleon got to power) after the French revolution. This meant there were a lot more free black people in Europe after that. In 18th century the Europeans, British especially, were colonizing Asia as much they could, which meant that in 19th century there started to also be a lot more Asian, especially Indian people in Europe. First picture below is of Thomas Alexander Dumas, who was son of a black slave woman and a white noble French man and became a general in the French revolutionary army. His son was one of the most well-known French authors, Alexander Dumas, who wrote The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers. Second portrait is of Jean-Baptiste Belley, a Senegalese former slave, who became French revolutionary politician. Third portrait is from 1810 of Dean Mahomed, an Indian-British entrepreneur, who established the first Indian restaurant in London. Forth is Arab-Javanese Romantic painter Saleh Syarif Bustaman, who spend years in Europe. Fifth is a 1862 photo of Sara Forbes Bonnetta, originally named Aina, princess of Edbago clan of Yoruba, who was captured into slavery as a child, but later freed and made Queen Victoria's ward and goddaughter. She married a Nigerian businessman, naval officer and statesman, James Pinson Labulo Davies (sixth picture).

So any guesses on at what point was that "very white Europe" when the "west culture" begun? It kinda seems to me that it never actually existed.

[creatingblackcharacters]

Hi! Neve sent an ask before, so I don't know how this works, but I'll chip in an obligatory I love your account; your reblogs especially were very helpful for my character casts! I'm currently working on a short-ish story where one of my main protagonists falls for a black woman. Their relationship is supposed to have conflicts, but ultimately they're endgame and supposed to be a genuine example of true love. But the thing is, I'm a white woman. I've searched a fair amount of your posts, but I haven't found anything on interracial relationships (Correct me if I've missed it!) What are things you noticed/dislike about how interracial relationships are portrayed in current media? And what are common harmful tropes/misconceptions included in them? I apologize if this subject derails from the conversation, but there's not many places I can find info on this topic, so I might as well ask here:!

Hello! Please capitalize Black when sending me asks. I'll put it on my pinned post, just so everyone is aware.

Tbh, this was likely one I was going to do a full lesson on at some point, so for now, I can give you some points of things that I personally don't like and/or find problematic or distasteful. Also, I've discussed these things in my lessons, particularly 3, 4, and 6. Please refer to my pinned post.

1. When the White partner is always the desirable one.

Black people are attractive, are sexy, have charisma, allure, endearing traits. It's gotten quite old that the partner that's always doing the chasing, regardless of their own quality of character, is the Black character. Maybe the White partner should be putting in the work!

2. An offshoot of that is that the White partner is described as being beautiful and attractive... Because they're White.

Now many people may not realize they're perpetuating this white supremacist belief, but when you're emphasizing "pale" (when we know you mean white) and light, thin hair, colorful eyes and other European beauty standards as what makes them the most attractive person in this story (versus mousy brown hair and tanned skin and plain brown eyes), you're implying that everything else is somehow less than. Especially when their partner is Black. If you're not putting in that much effort to describe the beauty and or marvel of the Black partner and character... It reveals your (however unconscious) beliefs!

3. How the White character is the "weaker", "more gentle", "purer" one.

This tends to happen with White women and white gay men characters. The idea that the Black character is inherently stronger, larger, more brutish, in need of being tamed... It's rooted in racism. Sometimes the White character could wait hand and foot on the Black one to show love and devotion 🤷🏾‍♀️ maybe it's the White character that needs to get their shit together 🤷🏾‍♀️ Black men characters can be masculine and gentle too. Black women characters can be softhearted and strong too. We are as capable of nuance as anyone else.

4. The idea that the Black character is meant to help the White one unlearn racism.

Now this is a touchy one. Because on the one hand, there's obviously going to be learning about culture and exchange in an interracial relationship. It's not wrong to have your Black character point things out to your white one, to help them be a better person bc they're in love and they need to understand and love and respect their partner's Blackness. Preferably they'd already know everything, but that's society. It's an active process.

But... There's this idea that somehow racism will be overcome because "love", and that's just not true. I personally don't think it's very romantic for a racist white woman to meet a Black man and through the story the message is "oh I learned how to see his humanity as we fell in love!" That's not... Cute to me. It is not hot in any way to have some guy or girl find my humanity and I'm supposed to thank and love them for that. That's the bare minimum. I'll respect them when they put in the work to show that they're unlearning, and when they get to a safe point, I'll be like okay. Certainly not "oh she's racist now but I know there's a good heart in there" noooo not really.

5. Every interracial relationship with a white person is not gonna result in a light-skinned baby.

Oohhoohoo I can't wait to elaborate on this one next lesson. 😈

These are my main ones. If any other Black fans have any opinions to add, I'd love to hear them!