Viennese Trainspotter

dumbthingswhitepplsay:

foxtalbotnegatives:

dumbthingswhitepplsay:

foxtalbotnegatives:

dumbthingswhitepplsay:

foxtalbotnegatives:

dumbthingswhitepplsay:

foxtalbotnegatives:

This is a pretty common perception of White Identity that should definitely be talked about more. Nobody wants to be left out of shit, but the fact that Whites literally cannot handle it (while other races put up with it day-in/day-out) and feel personally attacked when excluded from Non-White safe-spots tells you 1. how rarely White people experience someone excluding them based on skin color and 2. how completely White culture has failed to provide tools for sharing space, instead teaching Whites that all space is White space (“because all space is space for everyone”, a perception Whites share with no one).

This, by itself, is why I side-eye the fuck out of any of the newer oppressions that seem to be magically largely filled with white people…with no real body count to speak of.

Side. Eye.

And anyone who thinks I shouldn’t side-eye that can get themselves to a stadium.

Yet another reason Whites need to handle this racism shit: it’s preventing progress in a jillion other areas because the fundamental hypocrisy delegitimizes any anti-oppression movement Whites find themselves a part of.

And the funny part? There are so many things I used to side eye before (decidedly non-white identifying) PoC spoke up about them.

Like atheist oppression? White people talk about it, it sounds like ‘baww i live in a shit town and people make fun of me bawww my life so hard’.

But black people mention that black people convene literally nowhere outside of church, and I realized that was true. So I can see, from that perspective, where there is that element there.

The fact might just be that I don’t trust white people to do shit without a natural exclusion of non-whites and therefore I cannot trust anything they say they are oppressed about.

And I’m sure some dicks will call this “discrimination!!!” but I gotta protect myself above everything else. If my choices are not believing a few white people WRT something that sounds very side-eye worthy, and exposing myself to more racism…white people ARE always going to lose.

Same thing with otherkin. White-IDing PoC and white people explain it, it REEKS of “lol i’m white lol u must respect meeeee.” I speak it out with a bunch of PoC, and we all have a MUCH less problematic sounding idea of it, which I can absolutely respect.

Same with a LOT of white people rhetoric surrounding the phrase “I identify as”. Same when I hear people say “it’s an identity, it can’t be naturally oppressive” (which is RONG), or when people say “trust everyone who claims X is their identity”, which again, sorry, but that gets people who look like me killed ALL the fucking time. The idea that I should literally trust every person about what they say they are, when identity is slung around to abuse others, is WHITE by itself. It sounds like people telling me to trust the fucking police because “they’re supposed to help us”. I understand that there are issues with “what is ____ enough to be in the club” and constructs of that nature, but that doesn’t mean that gate-keeping is a completely useless, stupid tool that people made up for no reason.

Especially in cases of trans people, I can understand why early trans people might’ve had the “you need to be this amount of trans to be in the club” rule. Because THEY COULD DIE OTHERWISE.

Nowadays, we need to be a little more open as more for trans people is being done, but, and again, this is why I have a huge problem with the concept of binarism, people fuck around. White people ESPECIALLY fuck around and I cannot trust them even along my own marginalizations.

It gets to the point where if I see PoC using terms I’ve only ever heard white people use, I will react the same way. That is whiteness right there, a fear so pervasive that you instinctively need to throw down to prevent the shit you’ve seen coming to you.

I occasionally get accused of “sucking up to the kyriarchy” because I don’t trust every lily white person who opens their mouth and frankly, I’ll take that over the alternative.

Just to start: discrimination resulting from experience =/= discrimination resulting from prejudice. That Malcom X quote about reverse-racism sums it up. If anyone following me hasn’t learned to make that distinction, now’s the time. I’m about to do some talking, but DTWPS’ thoughts about this are infinitely more significant than mine. Read their post(s) in full and consider them at length.

Re: your distrust of Whites/White hypocrisy/how Whiteness and Identity clash: Whiteness, modern White Supremacy, and the behavior they produce all revolve around a White Identity Crisis that’s been occurring since the Civil War, which is the fucking heart of this issue (the Identity Crisis, I mean). Pre-Civil War, White Supremacy was in vogue. It was trendy. It wasn’t seen as inappropriate, unfair, or bigoted. Whites were just better. Then the War happens. And suddenly (in the cultural sense), White Supremacy is in question. Sure, Whites are still better, but they aren’t as superior as they used to be. Bring it up to the pre-to-post-Civil-Rights era, and now White Supremacy isn’t just in question, it’s suddenly become immoral. This produces a firm divide in the White population. On one side you have those who still believe in White Supremacy, but are now forced to hide it. On the other, you have that significant portion of the population that has experienced a change in heart, and starts trying to instill these new values of equality in their children.

HOWEVER.

Both sides are still working from the same angle: that of the raised-White Supremacist. The way a good-intentioned White Supremacist interprets equality and the way a closeted White Supremacist fulfills expectations of equality are one and the same. So, in the interest of keeping this short, I’m going to merge them and refer to them as one. The good-intentioned White Supremacist believes they aren’t a White Supremacist. Framing plays a huge role in this: compared to White Supremacists before them, they aren’t (or “at least not more than everyone is”, another tool White Supremacy relies on: the acceptance and minimization of some racism). They don’t commit hate-crimes against PoC, they don’t support segregation, they don’t berate and harass PoC. To the good-intentioned White Supremacist, these are the things that represent White Supremacy. And by those standards, the good-intentioned White Supremacist looks like a saint. But this is the problem: Whites are still using White perception to gauge their White Supremacy. I don’t think I need to outline how blatantly White Supremacist that is. Except, I know I do. As a White person, it’s still a daily revelation how wrong that idea is, that White opinion counts more. It’s a blindspot that White culture remains unaware of and it continues to destroy White Identity on levels social and individual. Whites are consistently taught concepts of equality and fairness, are told to employ them in their own lives, and are taught to expect them from others. But the only opinions they are conditioned to accept* are the opinions of Whites. And the only White opinions they are conditioned to trust are those uninformed by outside sources, aka “pure” White opinions. And so the White person goes about treating everyone equally, as defined Whites. It creates a people who are literally working against themselves (and, by extension, against the rest of the world’s population).

It’s not nearly as simple as that, of course (for instance, the open White Supremacist and the good-intentioned White Supremacist aren’t actually real personality-types, but White measuring sticks that allow internalized White Supremacy to appear tame or rational to an individual). I’m talking about this at length elsewhere on tumblr, people can feel free to message me if they’d like the link.

*Whites are socialized to entertain a wide variety of opinions and perspectives. This is an important distinction.

Your last sentence…yes.

It describes exactly how I feel when a white person says “This is just my opinion, it’s reasonable for me to say, isn’t it?” even when they’re saying some of the most racist, disgusting shit. They’re taught that it’s good for everyone to do that, because that’s what they’ve been taught to do, and that the correct answer at the end of this is “agree to disagree”. And of course, if you don’t do that, you’re the devil.

Which is why so many people use certain phrases, like “intent isn’t magical” and “no one cares about your feelings” and “your opinions are wrong”. Those phrases are hard and fast because after the 50th time you try to explain the details and context and nuance of a situation and the person tries that “agree to disagree” shit on you, you get fucking MAD. You’re tired of wasting your time and energy, and after a while, it just feels good to have a catch-all phrase.

Of course, if you use it, then you’re pegged as “angry” or “abusive” or whatever.

That’s why, especially here on my blog, I listen to nothing that sounds like whiteness. I don’t care who is saying it. I react instinctively on things that sound like whiteness. I even jump too hard in fast, as was evidenced by the whole bisexual thing. I had one definition of biphobia (given by white bisexuals) and the PoC I was talking to had a different one (which I ended up agreeing with). Same with atheism. I had one set of conditions given (by white people) and PoC I talked to had a different set (which I agreed with). It’s something I need to watch around PoC more carefully, but with white people, I definitely would rather move on the side of caution, regardless.

It’s amazing how invasive this shit gets, and it’s harder when you can’t explain it.

The bolded bit especially reflects one seriously significant but unexamined aspect of White culture, which is the power imparted to semantics. From an extremely young age, White children are socialized to have a giant vocabulary and use it creatively. If you take a look at political, religious, and moral discourse among Whites, semantics and word-choice both play a MASSIVE role in determining who has the upper hand in a given exchange. In many cases, a command of language trumps all, including actions.

Combined with that latent White Supremacist foundation, language has become one of the most powerful tools Whites instinctually use to avoid criticism concerning racism.

To be clear, while it’s particularly damaging in interracial discussion, derailing another person’s argument by debating semantics is central to pretty much all White verbal sparring. The basic idea can be summarized as: There’s no need to acknowledge another person’s argument if you can use their wording to imply their logical fallibility or intellectual weakness. After all, why bother attacking the actual issue (which is likely to have an objective rightness or wrongness) if you can focus on word-choice (where the subjectivity of definitions can provide all the shelter one needs)? This concept is modeled perpetually to White children, and they become very good at applying it by the time they hit adolescence.

Obviously, it’s a crucial crutch in the White psyche. This is part of the reason AAVE is so attacked by Whiteness. It takes the White person out of their element, forcing them to communicate in an environment that won’t guarantee their safety to express every opinion they want to, unchallenged. It’s also part of the reason the White-PoC conversations I see happening on SJ blogs get out of hand so quickly. When a White person approaches a debate, they rarely actually argue about ideas. More often than not, their focus is on the words used to describe said ideas. Now, word-choice is significant in every conversation or debate. But in White culture, semantics can and will transcend all else: If you can make it sound reasonable, it is reasonable. As fucking obtuse as this clearly is, it’s nonetheless appropriate behavior in White culture. Of course, when a giant portion of your ethnic identity supports the blatant mistreatment of other human beings, there’s really no better coping mechanism.

That last line you wrote pretty much sums up how I feel about it. These things are ingrained in me, are a part of my personal identity. Nobody writes about what Whiteness actually is. There’s plenty of literature on White Supremacy, plenty of literature on White people, but little to none on Whiteness. I couldn’t tell you what being White means, beyond being privileged. So I’m attempting outline what White culture is, what White Identity is, etc etc. Maybe if I can explain, I can fix it. I want to make it clear I’m not saying this is some “oppression” or “burden” Whites have. It’s a cultivated lack of self-awareness that means I was dropped into a fucking awful situation and given all the tools necessary to make it worse. The reason racism persists is because Whites don’t know a thing about themselves and make no effort to rectify that flaw. They can tell you about other races. They can tell you about other Whites. But they can’t tell you a thing about themselves, except to insist in convoluted language that they’re not doing anything wrong.

The bolded parts are again, why I am SO stringent about telling people to read, read, read, read EVERYTHING on this blog. Because many white people come here and they don’t KNOW my language. We might both speak English, but the way white people have interpreted me sometimes leave me going…where the fuck did you even GET that from? I force them out of their element, I FORCE them to learn my language and if they don’t like it, I don’t want them here. Language is such a basic and powerful force of whiteness, as well as the idea that oneself is entitled to education (which despite white people claiming they understand that, they often don’t), that I neither clue white people into what I am doing, nor change my language for them. The point is that they have to get it, all by themselves, and many have once they got over their damn feefees. Fighting whiteness is understanding JUST HOW WHITE YOU ARE. Down to every word out of your mouth, with no exception. And PoC aren’t necessarily exceptions from doing that either, which is where we get the idea of white-identification from.

Like a couple days ago, there was a big fucking to-do about Arkh using the language “for PoC and queers”. Many got the point, some sat there with their thumbs in their ass going “excuse me? FOR NON-WHITES AND QUEERS? If it is FOR something I am not, then it is NOT for me.” That goes into that dichromatic thinking again, where if one thing exists, white people do not understand that its opposite can exist at the same time.

In “black” language, if I say “X is for Y”, I mean only that X is for Y. I do not mean, X is for Y and if anyone even looks at it funny, I’ll shank them in the face. But white people translate that shit as “X is for Y. X is not for anything but Y.” Which is hilarious, because anyone who has taken a basic logic class knows that to conclude from “X is for Y”, “X is for no one but Y” is a logical fallacy!

Does that mean that implication means nothing? No, not necessarily, but definitely not to the level that white people take it.

X is for Y is just a single statement. The next statement could very well be, X is also for Z. But when you’re stuck in that dichromatic mine field of one-directional thinking, you’re that white person sitting there complaining about exclusion where it does not exist.

Lord, is it a privilege to be white, and to think in one direction, knowing that everyone else also thinks in one direction. Knowing that as long as you stay calm and use lots of roundabouts terms for things, no matter what the fuck you say, people will think you’re a good person, and anyone who gets mad is a crazy bitch.

A fucking privilege indeed.

This post is all kinds of perfect and I agree with Riley that everyone should read it.

(Source: luvyourselfsomeesteem)