Racism

ciao bella.:

The reason I don't like the term "people of color" is because it lumps together ALL non-white people as one entity, as though there are no differences between them. For that reason, it can get really annoying from a strictly descriptive point of view. Allow me to set up a scenario. I am friends with four guys. One is hispanic, one is asian, one is black, and the last one is white. I decide to introduce them to my other friend, we'll call her Julie. Afterwards, she recalls finding my black friend attractive, so she asks me for his name. But, being the PC girl she is, she says "what was your friend's name? The person of color?" Uh, Julie... three of them were "people of color," so that's not really descriptive. It's much more descriptive for her to refer to him as my black friend, or my African-American friend, or anything that doesn't include 3/4 of that group, really.

I mean, other than being a poor descriptor, I really have no problem with the term "people of color." If it empowers someone, then awesome. However, if I need to tell Julie which one of my friends she wants to date, then I need her to use a more specific term, or she'll end up with Matt when she really likes James. Or whatever.

I don't think it makes sense to use people of color in that context and using "people of color" doesn't make words like Black, Latino, Filipino, etc. politically incorrect. POC isn't a casual conversation word to identify someone, but a social and political group. I think using POC as an inclusive term, especially in America where we teach about black rights and struggles as though no other minority in America exists, is a good thing, because we have so many disadvantaged minorities and we do need to talk about them collectively because they're facing the same social injustices.

So today I saw that this taco restaurant in South Carolina is having it's employees wear shirts that are offensive toward Mexicans and talk about 'how to catch an illegal immigrant' so I commented on their Facebook page.

I was immediately accused of not being able to speak English properly/not having English as my first language/being Mexican.

Now, I'm not offended to be called Mexican, but these people clearly did not mistake me as a Hispanic person; they were using the fact that I was against racism to mean I must be Mexican and, because I was Mexican, I was clearly not able to speak English properly. (Never mind I was the only one in the argument who could type more than one sentence and knew how to spell what I was saying.)

The blatant and stupid ignorance and racism just really pissed me off. I know I'm lucky because I don't have to deal with that bullshit everyday but, let me tell you, it really opened my eyes to how stupid racist people actually are. The fact that they don't bother to formulate any actual sort of thought or intelligence before speaking is what makes them so harmful.

I'm really sorry to anyone who has to deal with that bullshit on a regular basis. You are better, you deserve better, and those people will eventually die and go away.

People everywhere are making terrorist jokes about muslims. I really just want to shout 'You're wrong! Get you facts right!" Some times it makes me want to cry. But I just have to turn my cheek. It's getting really sickening.

Is dried out asparagus a racial issue?

The current hot topic in my city... seriously.

Lets not worry about school segregation or the disproportionate of black men arrested in St. Louis.... lets get some water for our asparagus.

@ dru will be okay.
Stereotypes like that are the sole reason why I do not frequent Mexican restaurants in the U.S. that are not owned by Mexican/Mexican American owners and also the reason why I avoid the Mexican tag in Tumblr 'cause is filled with #Mexican party and pictures of white people dressing with sombreros, bigotes (mustaches), and zarapes (ponchos), portraying a very stupid stereotype of what Mexican is.

@ galaxias
To me just the idea of a Mexican party (thrown by white privileged people) is already racist. I mean, if you wanted to throw a culturally significant party, wouldn't it be best if, say, I asked you how to throw a cinca de mayo or day of the dead party?

@ dru will be okay.
Cinco de Mayo is not even a huge celebration in Mexico. That day is known as La Batalla de Puebla (Puebla's battle) during the second French intervention in the Mexican republic. It's an off day in schools, but that's it. It is nothing compared to Día de la Revolución Mexicana (Mexican revolution) or Día de la Independencia (Independence day).

I, overall, dislike cultural appropriation of traditional festivities of any country, especially when it is used as a fashion accessory (sugar skulls being used as earrings, in clothing, in art made by white privileged people, people dressing up as la Catrina [death], etc). However, if the purpose is to celebrate cultural diversity, have an actual Mexican person who is immersed in their culture organize it, not a white privileged person from the who has probably never even went to make an altar with offerings for the dead.

If these people want to throw a "Mexican" party, they'll notice it is nothing different from a regular party. Beer, food, sometimes karaoke, snacks, maybe watching a futbol game (soccer) or a boxing match. That's it.

@ galaxias

Chinese New Year has similar problems.

How do you feel about similar utter cock ups in terms of cultural appropriation but between white cultures? Like St Patrick's day or whatever. Is that similar (albeit obviously less racist) conceptually?

@ The Master
I do think it is conceptually similar. I especially dislike the commercialization of those cultural celebrations (St. Patrick in your example and Día de los muertos in my example). I also think racism is present in cultural appropriations between white cultures, but not in the highest degrees than with POC cultures.

@ galaxias

Gotcha.

-sigh- If only people could appreciate culture and not cock it up.

I just took a course at my college on Race and Ethnic Relations and I learned a lot about how racism still effects us to this day.

When someone starts or ends something they say with, "I'm not racist..." it more often than not means that they are about to say something that is racist.

Racism in America today is very hard to quantify and therefore even harder to talk about. Not that long ago segregation existed and it was ok. Segregation still exists in some places today but it is not seen as ok. There are no more laws written down in use that can promote racism, so when we do hear about racism now, where is the culprit? Sure you have your individuals who will use racial slurs, or worse, but that doesn't explain away the fact that some people say they face racism daily. This is where things started going wrong. Some people in modern day have started to blame the victim of racism, saying that if they just got a better attitude they would see that they are not being discriminated against, and that the white man is trying to help them!

America's society is struggling in a battle against the invisible enemy of unintentional institutionalized racism. Racism is found in our institutions, but it's not there because of laws and regulations.
Also, De facto segregation. Segregation that "just happens". This sort of segregation becomes very apparent when you look at maps of the US organized by the population's skin color. There are pockets of black communities and pockets of white communities, and in black communities lies a hole of poverty that is almost impossible to climb out of. There are no good schools there, women don't get sex education, and get pregnant at early ages.

I'm not saying that this happens to everyone, but these are not stereotypes, and they happen too often for it to be acceptable to turn a blind eye to these very real issues.

My mother posted on a website about how my brother had dual American/Spanish citizenship.

She was immediately bombarded with hatred about how she crossed the border and was a drag on our society and blah blah blah.

When she replied that she was actually a military wife who gave birth to my brother in a NATO hospital in Spain, therefore he was given dual citizenship by the government, their tune changed.

Immediately she was a hero and thank you so much for you service to the country.

It was sickening.

I read this article about a relatively famous (white) woman dressing up as a (black) character from Orange Is The New Black for a Halloween party. She painted her face an orange-ish brown color.

A lot of people were offended.

I personally don't know what to think about it, so I was wondering what you guys think.

@ Name Of Misery.
Blackface is never appropriate. What she did was disgusting and offensive and gross.

On a related note, did anyone hear about the people who dressed up as Trayvon Martin, Zimmerman, and "Robin Da Hood"? The girl was fired from her job, which was publicly posted. Not sure about the boys. (Additionally, the girl had taken a picture of a toddler with a 'black girls are awesome' shirt and captioned it with something like I don't know who's been lying to you, sweetie, but they aren't.)

@ Name Of Misery.
I think you can successfully portray your character without having to do something so close to black-face, since the concept itself is rooted in years racism and erasure of people of color in mass media.

@Dru
I saw it and I was so angered that people responded to it with "it's just a joke." No, racism is not a fucking joke and I can't understand people who think this way; it infuriates me.

Name Of Misery.:

I read this article about a relatively famous (white) woman dressing up as a (black) character from Orange Is The New Black for a Halloween party. She painted her face an orange-ish brown color.

A lot of people were offended.

I personally don't know what to think about it, so I was wondering what you guys think.

The funny ("funny") thing is that if she'd put more effort into making a bunch of little buns with her hair and worn the right color scrubs, she wouldn't have to do black face to be recognizable as Susan / Crazy Eyes (the character she was dressing up as).

Honestly the fact that it's such a half-hearted black face bothers me more than if she'd gone all out. She basically just looks like she put on too much fake tan, which indicates to me that she thought really painting her face would cause to much controversy and she wasn't interested in making any kind of statement (misguided though it might've been) about race; she just wanted to be like "lol don't I look just like this character?! it's funny because I'm so white and the character is black lololol".

The lead story on Yahoo right now is this headline: White mayor, black wife: NYC shatters an image.

Yeah, there's no racism problem in America at all.

'Oh, but they're pointing out how good it is.'

Yeah, but if we weren't a racist society in the first place we wouldn't give a fuck what race his wife is.

There is a kid who sits next to me in writing and he is extremely racist. He makes insulting comments and it's awful, he expects me to join in. It's awful. We are supposed to be excepting and it's sad that some people think that's ok.

this post has been edited by a moderator.

A few months ago I was on a bus with my best friend who just happens to be of Chinese ethnicity, she was born and raised in England. A old white guy gets on the bus, stares at my friend, sits as far away from us as possible and starts mumbling about Japan and other crap I couldn't hear. I was about to get up and smack when he gets off the bus literally one stop later because he didn't want to be on a bus with a seemingly Japanese person, we flipped him off as the bus drove off. I was so angry I was shaking for the rest of the day, but my friend was fine with it saying she gets it all the time when I'm not around which made me like ten times more angry. I'm so tired of being angry about racism, I can't imagine what it's like to live with it.