Bound to The Water

lebanesepoppyseed:

oldtobegin:

In a state of hype(r)panik.: oldtobegin replied to your post: Oh. Btdubs: Jews are white too,…

lebanesepoppyseed:

oldtobegin replied to your post: Oh. Btdubs: Jews are white too, technically. And they CERTAINLY aren’t oppressed.

I am Jewish and definitely benefit from white privilege as a person of eastern European descent. But yes, exactly, there are many people for whom I am not white enough.

as an addition, the Irish narrative in America definitely has a racist legacy. Two of the primary ways that the Irish became socially white were by adopting violent anti-Chinese rhetoric in the west and by becoming prominent in labor unions which espoused virulent anti-immigrant rhetoric. The narrative of the boundaries of whiteness in Amerca almost always involves people in the margins distancing themselves from those who are more marginalized in an attempt to compare themselves favorably to the dominant definition of whiteness. It hurts, but it’s part of my history.

cyberphuk:

senortacos:

cyberphuk:

oldtobegin replied to your post: seeing color =/= racism. a completely colorblind society wouldn’t appreciate or even acknowledge the cultural blend a variety of races brings. the bad side of colorblindness is when people declare that since all people are equal, if something doesn’t offend one group then it shouldn’t offend another.

i don’t have context for this question but i do think the ability to not care what race someone is is GENERALLY a privilege that comes with being white. people of color generally don’t have the same freedom to tune out race.

I feel like this is sort of unfair. I was raised that everyone is equal, and skin color is just skin color, and somehow this makes me racist?

i didn’t call you a racist, so back off. i was trying to provide some context for why people were saying what they were saying to you because i felt this part of it had gone unsaid.

also, unfair? yes. it’s unfair. a social structure based on any kind of supremacy of one race over an other is inherently unfair. it’s a hell of a lot less fair to people of color than it is to white people. i don’t even know what race you are, but i think you can understand where i’m coming from with that.

it’s starting to be understood by folks who study race relations and social identity for a living that people who were raised “not to see color” tend to be white people, and that because of this belief, they tend not to have all of the context necessary to understand the conditions and struggles of minorities and people of color. this doesn’t make anybody a “racist” per se, but it might make them uninformed. 

disregarding race is straight up easier to do if you’re white - because white is the default “color” in western society. it’s possible to “ignore color” if you’re white because nobody ever imposes color upon you. if you’re a person of color, you are pretty likely to see everybody’s race, because you are on survival mode - you are wondering who is likely to be sympathetic to you, who is likely to be aggressive towards you, who is likely to oppress or hurt or kill you. that’s why i say people of color don’t have the freedom to be “colorblind.”

you can get pissed at me if you like, but i’m just trying to explain why people said what they said, and trying to do so in a way that helps you see where they were coming from rather than pointing fingers. i hope you’ll think about it and ask questions rather than get angry and yell at me.

Thank  you for this, I’ve been trying to explain this to my coworker far too long and have been struggling with it.

I disregard sexual orientation, too, and I’m a lesbian. I disregard financial status and I’m poor. I disregard pretty much everything, really. Even as a white person I still have to “read” people to find out who is going to hurt or kill me, but race rarely comes into play when I do. Coming after me for being “racist” when there are far more racist people you could be pestering is really starting to piss me off.

Skin color does. Not. Matter. The end.

Future reblogs will be replied to with gay pornography.

sorry but it does. ignoring skin color means ignoring the different oppressions and privileges that each individual has experienced because of that skin color, not to mention homogenizing a bunch of different cultures and traditions. everyone should be equal, but that’s not how it actually is. you can’t just wave a magic wand and say that because you don’t see color, the centuries-long history of oppression an marginalization that minorities have experienced just disappears and everyone gets to start with a clean slate. institutional racism still exists. economic disparities that are directly related to skin color still exist. you can reply to this with gay porn if it makes you feel better, but your ignorance isn’t noble.

barthel:

Washington State has tended to be ahead of the rest of the country when it comes to abortion rights. Prior to Roe v. Wade, it was one of four states with sweeping legal protections to terminate a pregnancy. Now, the state is looking to set new precedent: It could soon become the first state to require all health plans to cover abortion.

(Reblogging for my wife.)

sometimes I’m proud of my state. (see also my gay marriage post)

(Source: Washington Post)