There have been so many times when I have hung out with family members who will belittle me or undermine my feelings and I’ll realize how undeserving they are of my love.

Like, they just expect me to give it to them when they don’t even try to earn it or even worse don’t treat it with the respect it deserves.

How many kids would have turned out ok if they were actually allowed to choose their own families — people who actually did shit to deserve their love and attention, and were grateful for such a precious gift?

How many kids wouldn’t have fucked themselves over trying to earn the love of family members that not only didn’t give a shit but didn’t deserve it in the first place?

I have no respect for people who hate on others for putting their friends before their family members — forcing others to love the very people who are the cause of their abuse and oppression is fucking abuse logic.

That type of thinking is fucking dangerous and toxic and I have zero fucking patience for it.

#I have the utmost respect for you Dave#But seriously#That white dude doesn’t need any of your money

loveyourrebellion:

ikillwhatineed:

sadiesmind:

ikillwhatineed:

I really hate Tumblr feminism. I really do. All I’ve learned so far is that I’m a horrible person for being white and all white men are potential rapists and I’m supposed to sit and listen to Bratmobile and take instagram pictures of my unshaved armpits.

Okay well because you made the effort to write a decent response I feel like I should definitely elaborate more as this is definitely not my perception of all feminists.

For my thesis, I wrote about “Gender In Cinema” which meant I had to thoroughly research feminist film theory which I did and to be honest as much as I agreed with a lot of the points, I can to the conclusion that it was somewhat idealistic and that cinema is something which has become more a commodity and market than an art form so it basically gives the people what they want to see.

Both men and women buy into Scarlett Johansson’s catsuit, if you know what I mean. That was one example of my conclusion of that. Maybe it’s not the indoctrination of patriarchy, maybe women admire her beauty and want to be like her. It’s been like that since the dawn of cinema, just like men want to be the epitome of masculinity like Humphrey Bogart. It’s primal for me rather than “indocrination” and that’s my argument.

As far as “shaming” goes, I think it’s awesome when a girl wants to grow it all out because she feels more comfortable that way. I don’t care what other women do and in fact I think women should embrace the fact that body hair can be seen as a sort of badge of maturity and womanhood, for example porn stars have started to embrace this for example Sasha Grey is not always “bald” and old pictures of Bettie Page where her body hair is perceived as erotic and womanly rather than “untidy” or lazy. If you think what I said was “shaming” think of it another way, maybe if I see a girl going out of her way to show everyone how “non-comformist” she is with her body hair, I feel like I’m being lectured because I choose to shave and I’m “adhering to the standards of beauty solidified by patriarchy”.

I mean, maybe it just feels better to me and I feel like it’s hygienic. In a way, going out of your way to show off something like makes me feel like I’m a “victim” of “patriarchy” and in a sense being shamed myself. Mine is a choice, just like hers and it’s not “men” or Vogue magazine that makes me do it. 

As far as whiteness goes, I am a Northern European Irish girl. My parents came from working class backgrounds and worked very hard all their lives to eventually provide me with clothes on my back, food in my mouth and a roof over my head, along with an education they could never have. From what I have learned by parents/grandparents lives were anything but “privileged”.

The privilege is only in the colour of their skin (guilty of being white) which is something no one should have guilt about and I completely also acknowledge that racism still exists but I cannot accept that through my existence as a white Irish person my existence stands for racism and “Imperialism”.

If you look at the history of my people, this is certainly not the case and I am excluding Irish-Americans from this. I have no guilt for being “privileged” since my ancestors didn’t have it and I am can appreciate I am lucky to have it since they didn’t. I can’t fight for the world and I feel like trying to put yourself up there as the “good whitey” is patronising and insincere since I know nothing about living in a third world country and it’s why the Kony 2012 bullshit was extremely offensive to me. One example. It comes across as self gratifying. 

As far as trauma goes and “triggering”, I understand that Post-Traumatic Stress is an awful thing for anyone to experience and completely exists and I am not unsympathetic to anyone who suffers from it. For me personally, I have experienced trauma, I have experienced depression and anxiety but I feel like I can’t shut myself away from bad things I see even if they remind me of my past. I am lucky enough never to have experienced a family member to be murdered in from of me, which has happened during atrocities all across history, The Holocaust, The Rwandan Genocide. To me, these are things I feel I am lucky in my situation/country/generation never to have experienced so instead of dwelling on my own problems and treating them as best I can, I try and learn as much as I can about devastating trauma that generations will never get over and try and pluck up as much courage to live as I can. The world is an uncaring, cruel, unjust place and I try my best to be as understanding, tolerant and listen more than I talk as much as possible. That’s where I stand. Feminism can’t save the world. All movements/religions/philosophies are flawed. I just want to be a good person because I am only one of billions. Human beings are tiny and weak and we’re fundamentally similar and that’s what I believe.

That’s where I stand at the moment. I believe in always learning and never falling into one slot and become indeed “indoctrinated” and closed minded. 

I sort of feel like your mind is made up and there’s really nothing I can say to change it, since I explained my perspective already and we’ve met no middle ground. I’ll leave this here so that other folks can read your response, so you can be heard on the issue, and so other can take up the argument if they see fit. As I said, I’ve stated my position, and it’s clear you’ve come to conclusions that aren’t going to be moved by my words. 

I’m just going to leave this image (this highly circulated image by the way) here because it pretty much sums up everything I would have said anyway about the initial comment about tumblr feminism:

I have no idea what part of tumblr you stumbled upon, because I sincerely feel like if not for tumblr I wouldn’t feel so strongly for feminist issues at all. In fact, I believe that the wonderful feminists I have followed/stumbled upon on this site have made me a better feminist, because I have been subjected to a variety of different people’s opinions and stories.

Because when you’re talking about the concept of racism and various other forms of oppression there’s literally no way that someone is going to come out of the conversation unhurt. Prejudice is messy, and hateful, and seemingly infinite, and it’s completely natural for people to get defensive about it when they feel personally attacked — because when is it not personal? All you can pretty much do is sit back and listen and try to learn from those who suffer from it so that you can try to understand where they’re coming from.

And only then can you actually get up and do something about it.

genderbitch:

Screw you. I’m tired of being pushed around and my needs ignored cuz I’m trans.

iwatchtheworldoutside:

The question of degradation is the one that served as the jumping off point for my interest in sex work.

The very nature of sex work isn’t degrading…but the way in which society views workers can be. There is nothing wrong with making a living—there are all sorts of dishonest, questionable…

Laurence Berg, Canada Research Chair for Human Rights, Diversity and Identity, disagrees with the
idea that PC language and policies are oppressive. Why? Because he doesn’t really believe that PC policies existed in the first place.

“What [they]’re calling the ‘PC movement’ I would call a social movement by marginalised people and the people who support them,” he said. “[A movement] to use language that’s more correct—not ‘politically correct’—that more accurately represents reality.”

Berg is referring to a way of thinking that many of us students were too young to catch the first time around. For us, the term ‘politically correct’ survived the 90s, but the term ‘human rights backlash’ did not. Will Hutton, former editor-in-chief for the UK publication the Observer, described in his column how the term ‘PC’ was never really a political stance at all, contrary to popular belief. It was actually perceived by many as a right-wing tactic to dismiss—or backlash against—left-leaning social change. Mock the trivial aspects of human rights politics, like its changing language, and you’ll succeed in obscuring the issue altogether.

 Berg believes this is what political correctness is all about: “The term politically correct is a reactionary term,” he said. “[It was] created by people who were worried by [social] changes…that affected their everyday understanding of the world in ways that pointed out their role in creating or reproducing dominance and subordination.”

According to Berg, the indignation people feel against PC ideas reflects the discomfort we feel when language and politics begin to pull away from the dominant values we grew up with—in other words, white, middle-class values. It’s no small coincidence that the concept of political correctness originated in the 80s and 90s, just after human rights concerns and visible minority groups started getting real attention in politics and the media.

Berg explains that in its original context, PC was a pejorative term used by people who felt they were losing something. Exactly what they were losing is very hard to describe, especially to them. But many sociologists and historians today have come to a consensus on what they call it: it’s a loss of privilege—and in terms of race, a loss of white privilege.

sheresists:

halifaxeten:

darkhairforcatchingthewind:

Funnily enough, Caucasians are native to more than one country! Imagine that!

I am half-Welsh, and I am very proud of my heritage. I have been bullied in school for this, because apparently it’s something to be ashamed of. I’ve been subjected to endless jokes about my ancestry.

Fun fact: Some…

No. No. No. No. No.

Listen, you’re oppressed because you’re Welsh, not because you’re white. ‘White’ is not a culture, it’s not really anything except an oppressive force powered by privilege and Starbucks.

Welsh is a culture, a culture that is typically oppressed. I get that. I’m an Irish Traveler. There are a lot of people who discriminate against me for being a traveler. There are bars I am not allowed to enter, there are people who have tried to set my family’s caravans on fire. There are people who think my culture isn’t ‘real’. Our children are not allowed to attend the same schools as settled folks a lot of the time. In Ireland, the minute I open my mouth, most folks know I am a traveler and I  get slurred. It is unsafe for me to go places alone sometimes. But I’m also white. I have white privilege. That means that people treat me with the same respect and consideration other folks treat white people. I can go into a room and know that most of the other people in the room are white, I can look at magazines and see my features held up as a beauty ideal, I will not be made to feel lesser because of the colour of my skin. My culture is something I experience oppression about, but my race is not. Most of the time, folks wouldn’t even know I was Pavee. (Especially being in North America.)

Whites have been raised in this privilege, and it’s important to acknowledge how our privilege oppresses other people. Like I said, you and I both have the luxury of going into a room and not being discriminated against based on the colour of our skin. We are afforded opportunities that a lot of the time, people of colour are not. This is because of our whiteness. Our cultural set backs are a different story.

Halifaxeten has got it right.

And also, when people call white folks out for cultural appropriation, for example, we are not ‘blaming you’ for all the racist acts that have happened in the world. We’re not saying that you haven’t experienced some form of oppression, or that you are, in fact, a racist. The problem with cultural appropriation is that it contributes to the production of negative stereotypes about POC and it is part of a larger history in which POC have had their cultures forcefully taken away from them. You and your specific ethnic culture may not have done this to them. However, as a white person, by engaging in acts of cultural appropriation, you’re reinforcing a history of negative stereotyping and the commodification and the exploitation of another culture. You are doing what other white folks have done in the past: you’re taking something without asking, you’re erasing its history, and you’re exerting a sense of entitlement over that other culture. You may not be the cause of this, but you’re complicit in this. 

If you are, as you say, anti-racist, and you just want to appreciate another culture, do so by respecting and listening to what the people of that culture have to say. 

Can you see what I’m talking about?

And you’re right, not everyone should be generalized or subjected to prejudice. But, racism = power + prejudice. And, even if all the POC in Western countries were prejudice to white people, how does that affect your life outside of cultural discrimination? Do you still see predominantly white people in beauty magazines? How many white people do you see in government? Compare the unemployment rates between Black people and white people. Even if all we do is generalize white people, do you suffer systemically and structurally by this ‘racism’? What privileges do you lose when POC are racist to you? 

Can you see the difference?