Posts tagged: white supremacy
talk about ironic.
Story of the day.
Well.
This is just… DELICIOUS, on so many levels.
Happens all the time. LOL. I’ve come to expect it.
Yup. You can count on a Right wing crusader acting publicly in ways that overcompensate for what they cannot own comfortably about themselves.
— Malcolm X
(via tabularasae)
Nicki Minaj’s rendition of “I Feel Pretty” makes me want to gouge my eyes out and then tare my ears off.
And the fuck is she doing now? DUDE…just stick to singing…you can’t rap…
You wouldn’t know what I’m talking about unless you’re watching the Grammy’s this very second. If you wanna know I suggest you turn on your TV or google it…but then again I don’t exactly recommend it…
Dear God why does everyone love her music?
I don’t really listen to her music as it’s mostly outside of my genre interest, but let me tell you why I love Nicki as an artist and as a human being. Because of this:
“When I started making those weird voices, a lot of people told me how whack it was,” she says, naming a few label higher-ups who warned her against straying too far from tradition. “‘What the fuck are you doing?’ they’d say. ‘Why do you sound like that? That doesn’t sound sexy to me.’ And then I started saying, ‘Oh, that’s not sexy to you? Good. I’m going to do it more. Maybe I don’t want to be sexy to you today.” For the first time since entering the room, Minaj loses her cool. Her voice goes up an octave, words run together in breathless exasperation, her lips purse, and she ever-so-slightly rolls her neck to suggest the quiet storm often obscured beneath the placid face of a wide-eyed princess.”
Watch this and tell me that this is not a voice that we NEED in the top tier of social media aimed at young people.
“When I am assertive, I’m a bitch. When a man is assertive, he’s a boss. He bossed up. No negative connotation behind ‘bossed up.’ But lots of negative connotation behind being a bitch. Donald Trump can say, ‘You’re fired.’ Let Martha Stewart run her company the same way and be the same way. [People will say] ‘F—-ing old evil bitch!’ But Donald Trump, he gets to hang out with young bitches and have 50 different wives and just be cool. ‘Oh, Donald, we love you, Donald Trump!’”
“When you’re a girl, you have to be everything. You have to be dope at what you do but you have to be super sweet and you have to be sexy and you have to be this, you have to be that, and you have to be nice,” she says. “It’s like, ‘I can’t be all those things at once. I’m a human being.’ “
Oh and also steampunk with transhumanist themes.
i didn’t watch the grammys, but i’ve already seen several tweets about how black history month is over now because of her and i just can’t get behind any line of thought that lays the onus of black folk at the feet of black women who don’t confirm to middle class notions of respectability properly.
and i also feel like ppl are less patient with artistic experimentation when black people, especially women, do it. there’s a reason why diana ross is remembered and lionized and Betty Davis and Millie Jackson aren’t, or at least not to the same institutional degree.
bolded fof realness and truth. i am personally a huge nicki fan. i’m going to go to sleep, wake up, and rewatch the performance. collect all my thoughts about it. i love it already on the basis of the pop culture references in abundance but i want to pick it apart.
one thing i already think…it was nick’s night to be the provocateur. she could have gone with a more toned down party track (super bass comes to mind) single off the last album but she decided to go a different route. i’m excited about what’s going to happen on the next album. i would love if she did an extremely dark horror influenced album. i’m personally really interested in the embracing of the abject/afro-futurist themes by mainstream rap/r&b artist (kanye, rihanna, wayne,) these days.
i think the comments about the ruining of Black history month are more telling about how uncomfortable our folks can be when we let our weird come out in public (i.e. in front of white people.)
lastly, the notion of a reparative/alternative read on the exorcist is really interesting to me. i think taking a part people’s anxieties about uncontrolled and uncontrollable girls/women (who are represented in horror as possessed by satan) is a dope dope move. and to me that’s what the performance was about.
i’ll probably do a paper on this. maybe submit it to a journal.
thanks mama nicki.
^^ this. like, i really want to have a conversation about how black folks relate to “weirdness” and how we tolerate it or don’t tolerate it in our communities and how it’s directly tied to the need to respond to/defend against white supremacy and sexual exploitation and death itself, but most of those convos very quickly slide into Toure/Henry Louis Gates, Jr./”black kids called me oreo when i was little now i’m grown up and SO much more creative and intelligent and artistic than THEY ARE, the low class negroes” territory.
and honestly, the performance tonight was only original in terms of context - i.e. that it was done by a black woman who’s a r&b/rap star. i feel like i’ve seen everlast do something similar along with however many hard rock/metal bands in the late 90s - marilyn manson being the most obvious example. and madonna was humping the floor in lingere and a roasry in the 80s, so it’s not that unique even in terms of pop music. it’s that it’s done by first, a black woman, cause in the US folks tend to forget black people are catholic too (and HELLO she’s from TRINIDAD where one of the largest religious groups are CATHOLIC) so her referencing that seems especially ridiculous, and second, that it’s done by a black woman who is marked as inescapably black (brown skin features BIG BOOTY) inescapably working class (NYC accent, wigs/weaves, brightly colored nails/hair/clothing, BIG BOOTY). cause we’ve already established that black women can be strong, but can’t be unwell or in need of care (can you imaging Girl, Interrupted or The Virgin Suicides with an all-black cast? exactly), so there’s that on top of the Catholic thing. and we can be pretty, and fine, and sexy, but we can’t be odd.
i’m with Nicki, fuck that.
Michelle Alexander on President Reagan’s War On Drugs :: npr
(via pieceinthepuzzlehumanity)
Barf
(via thefuror)
rapunzel’s mother (white lady + dark hair) - I bet you fellas can’t find one POC in this whole //film//!
stabbington brother a (white guy + red hair) - She’s right; like with many magical fantasy worlds not specific to any time in real history, POC are completely absent!
“Are you sure this movie was created in 2010?” Said the other Stabbington brother, in disbelief. “And they think we’re the bad guys of this movie? Talk about underrepresentation.”
“Well if you or Gothel are interested in reading more about it, I found a really good tumblr discussion about this entire issue,” said the first Stabbington brother.
(*POC: Person or People of Color)
but seriously tho
even though Tangled had a cute story and amazing art
for a movie that was made in like what? 2010? 2011? It is incredibly unsettling knowing that there was not a single POC.
idk- story time
Little Bangladeshi girl I used to babysit- she’s got dark brown skin and curly black hair and she owns this blond wig you know? And when ever she feels “ugly” (which is most of the time which breaks my heart) she puts on that blond wig so she can feel pretty again. She got that wig after she watched Tangled. She was so distressed by the fact that she was nothing like Rapunzel (or anyone in that whole movie) or all the other girl focused movies where the leads are always white ( with exception to Tiana, Mulan, Pocahontas and Jasmin) with long straight hair- that she got that wig so she could console herself with the fact that she isn’t “white girl pretty” as she likes to call it.
It’s the same bullshit I grew up with and internalised. There is an 18 year age gap between the two of us and I shit you not, the perceptions of beauty and what it means to be beautiful have not changed at all. Only difference is where I used to put powder all over myself to look white, she’s got a blond wig.
I know there’s gonna be people out there who say “it’s just disney! it’s just a kids movie! you’re an adult so you have no say”
Yeah, it is fucking Disney. If you knew about the history of Disney, it’s loaded with racism. The kids movie bit also turns to shit because what- aren’t our POC babies not worthy of being called kids? Aren’t they deserving of having kids shows that have folks who look like them in it? These things matter- believe me, they do.
As for the adults comment- that is actually really fucking scary that it is adults who make this. It’s adults who have a say in what kids can watch. And the adults who made this movie made it pretty darn clear that POC weren’t good enough for kids to watch in this movie. Or that POC kids aren’t deserving of a diverse viewing experience.
:/
man one of my biggest problems with people who are like ‘omg stop complaining it’s not like kids will notice’
kids DO notice
shit, i noticed
and my friends all noticed too.
why do you think i got told to be jasmine or pochahontas when we played around w/ that shit when i wanted to be snow white? because kids notice. they looked at snow white in all her lily-white fucking adorable-ass glory and looked at me and saw some frizzy-haired brown bitch and they’re like, ‘nope.’
kids can develop massive complexes over this shit. little white girls start acting like they’re better because they get the quote-unquote cool princesses and little poc girls feel like shit that they don’t look like the ‘good’ princesses.
so while it may not be the most important thing ever omg in terms of race relations, it does have an effect so can we please stop pretending it doesn’t ok yes thank you.
[WARNING for racism/privilege-denying/victim-blaming under the “read more” cut]
I hate when people talk about “Cultural Appropriation.”
Like freaking out on hipster white chicks for wearing a “native american” headdress.
If you’re going to pull that, then don’t you dare wear clothes that were made in a textile factory, because those originated in England, and if you’re not from there, then you should get bitched at every time you wear a shirt made in a factory.Explain to me how that is justifiable again?
You’re ignorant of history. The clothing industry has its roots in India, which is where most Europeans in the pre-industrial era traded for textiles. England got there in 1600 through the British East India Company and over the next 200 years proceeded to plunder and then destroy the Indian textile industry in order to make room in the global market for their own mechanically-produced products, which still couldn’t compare with the Indian products in either quality or price. So the English set about making rulings that Indian cloths could only be made of low-quality materials, saving the better materials for British use, and mutilating Indian artisans who protested unfair sanctions (see: the 1690-1721 Calico Acts).
Next time you assume it’s lily-white European men who are solely responsible for the good things about the way we live today in the modernized West, do your homework first. They didn’t pull clothing and mathematics and architecture and philosophy out of thin air, you know. They mostly stole it.
On the House floor Monday, state Representative Cecil Ash (R-Arizona), suggested that Arizona create a White Appreciation Day when White Americans are no longer the majority in the United States, reports CBS5AZ.com.
Ash made the oddly not surprising statement — as it’s coming from the land of Governor Jan Brewer, revisionist history books and the most repellant immigration laws in the nation — after State Rep. Richard Miranda voiced his support for a Latino Appreciation Day:
“I wanted to speak to you all about Latino Americans here in Arizona,” said Rep. Miranda on the House floor.
[Read the rest of the article at NewsOne]
Arizona what are you doing?
i hate to tell you, rep. ash, but when white people are no longer the majority in america? nobody is going to be sitting around reminiscing fondly about when we were.
‘hey, remember when it was mostly white people and they had all the power and money and made all the decisions? good times. oh, to be oppressed once more!’
Special clause for the Big Three that tend to get lumped together:
- Judaism is not Christianity minus Jesus
- Islam is not Christianity plus Muhammad
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have radically different theologies, radically different approaches to text, radically different understandings of practice, and radically different understandings of who is part of the community. You cannot assume a Christian concept of what religion is (and a very Western form of Christianity to boot) then act like everything else is just a variation of that.
In addition:
- Buddhism exists
- Daoism exists
- Indigenous spiritual traditions exist outside the East/West dichotomy
hinduism exists (and is kind of popular).
shintoism exists (and is an actual belief system).
the maori (still) exist (and they had to sue lego for wholesale lifting maori ‘mythology’ as flavor text for bionicle).
native americans and their religions (still) exist (and the extant mayans will tell you that the world is not ending in december).
pre-christian european religions (still) exist.
non-white non-european peoples exist fucking everywhere, and believe all kinds of things, but haven’t used the sword or rifle to convert everyone else to their faith, and so are not accorded status as ‘major’ religions, but still totally count as more than lumping five continents into ‘other’ aka your list is wildly incomplete.
speaking to your core point, ‘christianity is not even the only //major// religion’ is perhaps a better thesis. 1.5 billion muslims last figure i saw quoted, that’s kind of a big deal.
[atheism exists. i’ll just leave this one here.]
First of all, I am not writing a thesis paper. My post was never meant to be a comprehensive rebuttal of the most common assumptions people bring to the table when talking about religion.
Second, basing your criticism of my post on the assumption that I’m somehow NOT a non-White, non-European person (especially since my username has ESHU in it - a name I did not pluck out of Wikipedia) is … interesting.
But, since it’s apparently more important that you show the world how stupid I am and how ridiculous my thesis is, here you go.
I am so dumb and my main point is made entirely invalid because I didn’t list:
- The Baha’i Faith
- Shinto
- Vodoun
- Santeria
- Columbe
- Yoruba
- Hinduism
- Wicca
- Satanism
- Astaru
- Jainism
- Sikhism
- Zorastrianism
- Secular humanism
- Anything else at that could conceivably be considered a religion, spiritual tradition, or belief system by anyone anywhere, on the entire planet on this day, February 5, 2012 at approximately 8AM Eastern Standard Time.
no, you were fine, i was being //way// snarkier than that deserved (even if it had been just some hipster white kid). it wasn’t my intention to impugn or insult you, and i’m sorry that i did.
my initial reaction was just to add to the list (and pass it along to grow, which i suspect you also intended) of commonly ignored ‘lesser’ religions from the perspective of white americans (particularly hinduism, which is the third largest religion and not a distant fifth after judaism as is often implied), but snarking on //actual// white imperialists got mixed up with //presumed// imperialism.
re: eshu, one thing i wanted to add last night but didn’t is that as a white american dude, i don’t even know the names of any indigenous african religions, let alone any of their details, other than anansi having been in american gods. that’s the purest kind of white supremacy right there, white people don’t even want to //study// african religion, let alone appropriate it as backstory for our heroic fiction.
How The West Was Stolen
On February 2, 1848, representatives of the United States and Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending what the US called the “Mexican-American War,” known in Mexico as the “War of United States Intervention.”
Overnight, more than a hundred thousand Mexican citizens became foreigners in their own land. Although the TGH included safeguards protecting land rights, respecting the culture and language of Mexicans, this was never honored.
164 years later, many families are still fighting for their land. This fight is especially strong in New Mexico and Texas, states that saw extended land disputes well into the twentieth century.
The justification for this war was based on the notion of “Manifest Destiny,” or the divine right to continental expansion. Essentially, religion used to excuse a racist land grab.
As we’ve seen recently in Arizona, there’s a concerted effort to keep our youth from studying the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and other important parts of Mexican history in the United States. It illustrates how after 164 years the Mexican-American is still being fought, albeit more so with legislation than with invading armies.
For Mexicans living in the United States, especially those in the Southwest, February 2 is a day to remember that “we didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us.” Let us never forget this.
we never will. nor will our children, because we teach them.
and here i thought the elimination of mexican studies was because of just plain old everyday racism, not a political move to disenfranchise the youth of tomorrow. (my fellow) white people: still worse than you think!
We all have a dark passenger.
Brilliant.
amazing
This concept both fascinates and terrifies me.
I am now creeped the fuck out and looking behind me for some fucker in a black bodysuit.
Seriously though, this is awesome
Everything bad we do is the Black thing’s fault. Apparently.
no, man, the store was just out of white bodysuits, is all. and we’re not going to impugn //the blue man group//, are we? so it had to be black people. i mean black shadows. sorry, i mean ‘dark passengers’.
Europeans use “Horse Shoes” for good luck. The story is that Jesus, a great European spiritual leader, came from the sky and gave the first Horse Shoe to a European king.
I should get one for my rear view mirror of my car…my great great great grandmother was a German princess so it’s really spiritual to me.
*snort*
![otooles:
She was always a ‘Chinese’ because she looked Chinese even when she sought to be and act American, with her flapper slang and costume during the early 1920s. She was, in fact, truly American in being and action. She even walked and stood like a European American. But she was neither European American nor ‘white.’
Anthony B. Chan, Perpetually Cool: The Many Lives of Anna May Wong
[trufax :: i thought this was pear before i scrolled down. because SWAG.]](http://www.tumblr.com/photo/1280/ultralaser/16939780284/1/tumblr_lx8jqsncJT1qj3026)
She was always a ‘Chinese’ because she looked Chinese even when she sought to be and act American, with her flapper slang and costume during the early 1920s. She was, in fact, truly American in being and action. She even walked and stood like a European American. But she was neither European American nor ‘white.’Anthony B. Chan, Perpetually Cool: The Many Lives of Anna May Wong
[trufax :: i thought this was pear before i scrolled down. because SWAG.]
The significance of Don Cornelius to American culture — and to the American culture business — is told nowhere more eloquently than in one brief exchange between Cornelius and singer James Brown, a story that Cornelius himself recalls in VH-1’s excellent 2010 documentary Soul Train: The Hippest Trip in America.
It was the Godfather of Soul’s first appearance on Cornelius’ then-nascent syndicated TV show — designed to do for soul music and black audiences what American Bandstand had long done for pop music and mainstream audiences. Brown marveled at the professionalism of the production, the flawlessness of its execution.
He turned to Cornelius and asked, “Who’s backing you on this, man?”
“It’s just me, James,” Cornelius answered.
Brown, nonplused, acted as if Cornelius didn’t understand the question. He asked it two more times, and Cornelius answered twice again: “It’s just me, James.”
That the man who wrote the song “Say It Loud — I’m Black and I’m Proud” and who recorded the soundtrack to the Black Power movement could scarcely comprehend that a black man like Cornelius both owned and helmed this kind of enterprise without white patronage is a testament to the magnitude and the improbability of Cornelius’ achievements.
This is probably the best obit I’ve read so far, and I’ll admit that the last paragraph of it made me weepy eyed.
Also revealed: Ron Paul has held meetings with A3P and Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party — the notorious UK fascist group with neo-Nazi roots.
Members of the nationalist American Third Position Party (A3P), whose website was defaced by Anonymous, organised Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul’s meetings and campaigns, according emails hacked by the collective.
Chairman of the British National Party (BNP) Nick Griffin also took part in meetings with Paul and other representatives of A3P.
“According to these messages, Ron Paul has regularly met with many A3P members, even engaging in conference calls with their board of directors,” read a statement from Anonymous.
