misterjmasters:

A cleaned up version of the doodle graphic Tumblr user lovewallace created because it deserved to be a full grown graphic.

Original post is here.

If it’s hard to read:

Embiggen Page 1

Embiggen Page 2

It is easier for a white person with a felony conviction to get a job than for an African-American person with no criminal record.

tankmonster:

yo i’m gonna just reblog this once a day because it’s unacceptable.

(Source: pedazitosfightsback)

Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a reservation, you do not have permission to be here.

Minneapolis cop at Mall of America Idle No More rally (via ishkwaakiiwan)

because Natives need permission to merely exist, and they must do so far out of colonizer sight and mind. how fitting this happened at Mall of America, the height of US capitalist megaconsumption & beacon of modernity—this is an excellent example of how colonial rhetoric relegating Natives to ahistoric primitive backwaters translates into real material (ongoing!) violence. 

(via nitanahkohe)

fatfeferi:

carrotfortress:

thinkspeakstress:

carrotfortress:

thinkspeakstress:

hypervocal:

“We don’t mean to offend you by calling you racist.”

Two slam poets with Brave New Voices deliver this fearless indictment of hipster cultural appropriation and all its collateral damage. 

DEAR WHITE HIPSTERS AND OTHER WHITE PEOPLE OF TUMBLR, CLICK PLAY AND LISTEN CLOSELY.

Lol seriously though why does this not have more notes?! I can’t even pick my favorite part. It’s amazing, and flawless, and just… yes.

“Acting like you’re down because you say “fuck the system,” but in the same breathe are quick to gentrify the hell out of my hood.”

“Is that racist? Yes, that is. And we don’t mean to offend you by calling you racist; we know that according to you, we’re all part of the universe. But you have a tendency to treat animals better than humans.”

“We don’t need to hear your feelings about our issues. “To be fair, as a white person—-” “Nononono, shut the FUCK up.””

How is gentrification a bad thing?

There’s no problem at all with white people displacing PoC from their homes because they decide that they like the neighborhood…. but don’t like the people or any of the places in it. Are you serious? GOOGLE.

It’s not displacing PoC from their homes, gentrification is (usually) done without force, it’s the result of market value for a neighbourhood shifting upwards and attracting a different socio-economic class. With these people with higher incomes comes higher local taxation revenue, meaning more money to be spent on policing and programs that benefit the community.

It’s very easy to fall into emotionally charged rhetoric, to simply react to events without actually thinking about them, which is what the above video is. It’s not analysis, it’s simply a reaction to the world as they perceive it. They’re lashing out at people they see as ‘oppressors’, despite those people being well-intentioned, if naive.

spoken exactly like someone who has not lived through gentrification, someone who has not SEEN IT HAPPEN THROUGHOUT THEIR LIFETIME

when i was born new york city was considered a drug-riddled nest of crime, and the neighborhood i grew up in especially so. now my old neighborhood is overrun with white joggers who avoid columbus avenue where old dominican men still play dominos. 

what is not forcible about this? what is not forcible about the landlord of the building i grew up in seeking out legal loopholes to expel tenants paying cheaper rent? what is not forcible that that landlord tried to do the same to my family, and had to be chased out of the apartment by my “scary” puerto rican stepdad? what is not forcible about ejecting older tenants to replace them with tenants who pay $5000 a month in rent, to build ugly new buildings where the starting price is $3000 a month in a neighborhood that has almost always been primarily working to lower middle class dominicans? or to force out longstanding mom and pops businesses with sudden rent increases because of landlords catching wind of being able to charge more in the area and get away with it? (this is, by the way, the reason CBGBs no longer exists.) i certainly cannot afford to live in that neighborhood ever again. i have been forced from my home grounds. 

gentrification is an ugly beast that works to displace and disappear the working class. READ. read the ny times if you won’t believe me. read how real people right now, in this century, this decade, this year, are being affected by gentrification right now. 

dreaminginspanish:

sifuerasyo:

uglyisbeauty:

ch0chalapan0cha:

sometimes i have to lay the smackdown

Boom

bam

Shut down!

doveilmiosoldi:

blackmanonthemoon:

This is the last day of the American Indian War and this is a picture of the Wounded Knee Massacre, those bodies are the Native Americans 

“There was a woman with an infant in her arms who was killed as she almost touched the flag of truce … A mother was shot down with her infant; the child not knowing that its mother was dead was still nursing … The women as they were fleeing with their babies were killed together, shot right through … and after most all of them had been killed a cry was made that all those who were not killed or wounded should come forth and they would be safe. Little boys … came out of their places of refuge, and as soon as they came in sight a number of soldiers surrounded them and butchered them there.” - Wašíčuŋ Tȟašúŋke or American Horse of the Oglala Lakota tribe

the Indian Wars did not end in 1890. without discounting the horrors of the massacre at Wounded Knee or the subsequent ramifications for US-NDN policy/violence on a national level, as someone who studies indigenous narratives on genocide and massacre, I can tell you that the above account is sickeningly not unique. for example, it’s really truly nauseating to see the unifying thread that is the methodologies of violence connecting Wounded Knee, Camp Grant, Sand Creek, Tuluwat, and other 19th century massacres…tell me why those methodologies were the same that were taught to School of the Americas-educated mercenaries sent to Central America? why they’re the same extrajudicial violence tactics used by US troops to torture Iraqis nearly beyond recognition (important to note that the US military has referred to Iraq as Indian Country)? 

the Indian Wars did not end in 1890. smaller-scale massacres similar to Wounded Knee occurred officially thru the 1920s, though it’s arguable that genocide has been the defining characteristic of US policy towards Natives throughout the 20th & 21st centuries and though the methodology of murder may have changed, it’s hardly stopped. Native children were still being held as slaves well into the early 20th century, and they were stolen and enrolled in genocidal boarding schools thru the 1970s. the US gov’t’s initial testing of Agent Orange, nuclear bombs, and an array of toxic pesticides were all done on Native lands. sure, any history of Wounded Knee has to include the horrendous massacre in 1890, but it better also include the 122 years of violence and resistance (including the 1973 incident!) afterwards.

the Indian Wars did not end in 1890. considering rates of sexual violence against Native women (34% in the US; not to mention the horrific stats on missing and murdered NDN women), Native teen suicide (3.5x higher than the US average), the vast environmental devastation taking place on Native lands (see: tar sands, mining, radiation testing, toxic waste disposal, water theft, etc), the day to day racism and corresponding cavalier treatment of murder of indigenous peoples, the continued destruction of sacred sites and denial of rights to religion, the refusal to recognize existing tribes and honor treaties, the continued threats to tribal sovereignty, the increasing violence to indigenous peoples along the US borders, and the oftentimes life-threatening conditions in the POW camps reservations Native communities have been relegated to, it’s obvious that the genocidal US gov’t is still fighting their part in the war. Natives, for their part, have similarly not abandoned the fight—the sheer strength and resistance within Native communities shows this to be true. 

in the words of Leslie Marmon Silko: “Deep down the issue is simple: The so-called “Indian Wars” from the days of Sitting Bull and Red Cloud have never really ended in the Americas. The Indian people of southern Mexico, of Guatemala and those left in El Salvador, too, are still fighting for their lives and for their land against the “cavalry” patrols sent out by the governments of those lands. The Americas are Indian country, and the “Indian problem” is not about to go away.” (The Border Patrol State—see link in my free education tab)

the Indian Wars did not end in 1890. the Indian Wars are an ongoing reality as long as Native peoples have to fight for survival. 

cuttlefishculler:

poker-cards:

coletureconcept:

So I just learned something very important on this website, and something I’ll clarify for all of you, due to the sensitivity of the topic and the discourse surrounding it.

It can be easy to get heated in a discussion on the internet (this is nothing new to anyone who peruses it enough).  However, when reading posts, please do not apply, or jump to conclusions, about what I say or what someone else says, based on a small text post.  A couple people:
barbreyryswells



opus-pocus



cuttlefishculler



notjustacookie

These users raise points but not ones I stated or said ( I recommend you look at the posts, for they will surely provide additional context).  Unless it’s logically sound to jump to results like the ones made, it’s entirely inappropriate to make such conclusions.

The posts I make are romantic in nature, for they rely on the reader to grasp at a larger potential idea or reality that is not currently or might not ever become realistic.  You shouldn’t, for your own peace of mind and also mine, jump to severely negative conclusions based on the small bits of text posted on this website. 

I will not standby regardless of race, class, or any symbolic affiliation, and let you slander a certain group or individual if it can be appropriately resolved.  This is not because I’m a privileged upper class white (a notion towards our society’s quickness at throwing us all into different categories), but because my personal moral and anthropological code restricts me from cowardly observation (codes I adopted from my “privilege”).
Anthropology in the contemporary, has a concern with ethnocentric views, primarily from a white-male origin.  Does this mean the “white male” should be treated differently because of a past he took no part in?  Doesn’t this simply re-apply what other classes and races and genders are fighting against?  Would you really fight the battle by stooping to the same level?  So be it, I’ll watch, and write about it.

“Does this mean the “white male” should be treated differently because of a past he took no part in?  Doesn’t this simply re-apply what other classes and races and genders are fighting against?  Would you really fight the battle by stooping to the same level?”

See, this is the part I have a problem with. And for a smart student, you really don’t see some pretty obvious things.

We can complain about labeling people and how labels are bad, but the reality of the situation is that society is going to label us no matter what. The important thing isn’t to ignore these labels and become “colorblind” or “genderblind” or what-have-you,but to recognize the fact that labels exist, question the reason behind it, and realize the inherent privilege that comes with certain labels.

America was built on the backs of slaves, POC, and women, with white males cracking the whip and claiming all the credit. Our history books were and still are alarmingly Eurocentric. The things our schools teach, the things our peers say, the things that are drilled into us from a very young age, the media representation (or lack thereof of certain groups), the fact that the majority of lawmakers and represented boomers, shakers, and producers in America are white males - all this contributes to your privilege. I doubt that you’re a white supremacist loud and proud, but the fact that you are white and you are male in this society means that you get unearned privilege. That’s the big thing here. Being white and being male in America is like playing the video game of life on “easy.” Of course, you still have to play the video game, like everyone else, but it’s going to be much easier because this system is designed to lift up white males and oppress women, people of color, and queers.

The point I’m trying to hammer home is that because you are white and male, you have unearned privileges. People with black-sounding names have a dramatically less callback rate from jobs and internships than people with the same exact resume and qualifications, but white-sounding names. Every 36 hours, a black person is killed by a police officer in America. Black people are followed around in stores more often than whites, because storeowners assume that blacks are more prone to acts of violence than whites, which leads society to believe that blacks are inherently more violent and dangerous than whites (inferior, more base, etc), which leads blacks to not getting called back for jobs, getting killed on no good basis by police officers, and kept in low-income neighborhoods and and judged harshly for being black. It’s a cycle of oppression that is difficult to break out of.

That’s what I think you don’t understand … “Oh, I’m not privileged because I’m white and male” is false. Yes, you are privileged because you are white and male; yes, we are growing in a racist, sexist, homophobic society that favors and gives whites, males, and straights unearned privileges and simultaneously oppresses people of color, women, and queers; and yes, that does affect each and every one of us. The fact that you are ignoring these very important social constructs of race is not making you the better man, or the superior human being. It is making you an ignorant, naive person that doesn’t realize the true nature of things and how to combat them effectively.

Oppression and racism/sexism/homophobia isn’t just interpersonal, or institutional. It’s internalized, and that comes from all the interpersonal and institutional oppression; which in turn is affected by internalized oppression. This cycle of oppression is interconnected, and it’s a circle. There’s no start or finish. That’s why I think so many people find it difficult to see that privilege and prejudice exists, because there’s no good way to begin explaining this cycle of oppression.

So, Cole Sprouse, recognize your privilege, and instead of getting offended that you’re getting called out for not recognizing it, please realize that in the end of the day you’re studying anthropology in a nice college and don’t have to worry about money, while my mom’s struggling to make ends meet because her boss won’t give her a raise because she has an accent, and people pull the corners of their eyes at me and say “chinky rinky chinaman” and I have a drastically lower chance of getting into college with the same qualifications as a white girl because I am Asian. You are seen as a person. I am seen as Asian. Please realize that you are privileged, and that getting offended when people point that out, and preaching equality and colorblindness doesn’t mean jack shit because the real world doesn’t work that way.

Thanks.

i’m reblogging this for the awesome commentary this person supplied, but also to immortalize the fact that COLE SPROUSE NAMEDROPPED ME AND HE DELETED IT BUT I FOUND A VERSION SOMEONE REBLOGGED THAT STILL HAS MY NAME!!! YES

reallyfoxnews:

This is not a joke.

fucking WOW

(Source: nosdrinker)

reallyfoxnews:

silvermoon424 replied to your quote: Don’t demonize people who are accurate in the…

Are you fucking serious? “Illegal immigrant” is not a slur if they’re FUCKING ILLEGAL. There are far worse ACTUAL slurs used against Mexicans.

(1) I am “fucking serious.” 

(2) Not all undocumented immigrants in America are Mexican

(3) Being in a country without proper identification is a civil offense, not a criminal one so the misnomer of ‘illegal immigrant’ is legally and technically inaccurate.

(4) To borrow from Jose Antonio Vargas: ““The term dehumanizes and marginalizes the people it seeks to describe. Think of it this way, in what other context do we call someone illegal?”

(5) “Illegal immigrant” is a term used primarily in a partisan and racially charged way in news reporting and/or opinion pieces to stir controversy. In almost no circumstances is it a neutral, descriptive term.

(6) To quote Fox News Latino, “The term “’lllegal immigrant”’originated in 1939 as a slur by the British to describe Jews entering Palestine without authorization after fleeing Nazi Germany.”

(7) “But the word illegal refers to the action of breaking immigration law, not the person!” No. If that was the case, then why don’t we call people driving without insurance “uninsured drivers?” They aren’t illegal drivers, are they? If you are driving without a license you aren’t an illegal driver, you are an “unlicensed driver.” Illegal in illegal immigrant doesn’t mean undocumented, it means “you are not American, you do not belong here, you do not deserve to be here, get out.” As Charles Garcia points out, you are not illegal when you commit other crimes, including murder or paying your taxes. That descriptor is reserved for racially and ethnically charged hatred and political gain.

(8) If the world is merely descriptive, then why has Fox News Latino responded to the overwhelming opinion of their audience to stop using it? Why as the US Supreme Court toned down its language regarding undocumented immigrants?

(9) Read this.

(10) “You, who are so-called illegal aliens, must know that no human being is illegal. That is a contradiction in terms. Human beings can be beautiful or more beautiful, they can be fat or skinny, they can be right or wrong, but illegal? How can a human being be illegal?” - Elie Wisel

“The Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson”

sheelzebub:

so-treu:

I thought about those incidents as I read The Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson an essay in The Smithsonian by Henry Wiencek about Jefferson’s career as a slaveholder and the revisionist history surrounding it. Far from being a reluctant slave-holder, Jefferson treated slavery as a lucrative investment.

Some of the most damning evidence of Jefferson’s treatment of his slaves, like records of the beatings they received, were actively suppressed by revisionists and have only recently come to light.

I’m embarassed to admit that I was taken in by revisionist accounts. I imagined that he’d inherited his slaves and only kept them as nominal slaves because he couldn’t afford to set them up as free farmers. Obviously, even at that, slavery was an atrocity. I didn’t want to consider that the co-author of the Declaration of Independence might have kept slaves out of pure greed.

The most disturbing revelation in this story is that Jefferson didn’t just keep slaves to work on his farm. He wrote that his real business model was “the increase” of his female slaves. He was raising human beings to be auctioned off like livestock. Jefferson calculated that the children of his slaves brought in a reliable 4% return per annum. It was a great business, he recommended it to everyone.

In the movies, we know someone’s a benevolent slave-holder if they “don’t break up families.” Well, those are the movies.

The revisionist fiction is that slavery was an unprofitable institution by Jefferson’s time. Wiencek explains how Jefferson breathed new economic life into bonded servitude by devising profitable models for slave labor in factories and wheat fields as tobacco farming was being phased out.

Jefferson spurned a golden opportunity to walk away from the slave trade. An old revolutionary comrade willed Jefferson a small fortune to pay for his slaves’ release and education, but Jefferson refused, even though he was the executor of the will.

George Washington freed his slaves upon his death, but Jefferson didn’t even go that far.

Some defenders will say that it’s unfair to judge Jefferson by the standards of our day, but the fact is, Jefferson fell short of the standards of his own time. He knew it was wrong to own slaves. In fact, his writings helped to set the standards of his day.

Wiencek’s essay was a wakeup call, not just for its revelations about Thomas Jefferson, but for what it said about my own willingness to assume the best about a historical figure I admired.

boldness added.

Yes, yes, yes, thank you yes.

Also.  I don’t care what anyone said, he didn’t have an affair with the 15-year-old Sally Hemmings—HE RAPED HER. Because hello, she could not give consent in any sense of that word.  Legally, she was his property.

anesther:

BECAUSE DISNEY AND NON-DISNEY NEVER HAD WOMEN OF COLOR BEFORE RIGHT?

DON’T GET ME STARTED ON LIKE HALF OF THESE OKAY

Princess Tiger Lily: racist stereotype

Pocahontas: racist stereotype (more overall, less the character, but the character too)

Esmerelda: THEY CALL HER AND THE REST OF HER PEOPLE GYPSIES CONSTANTLY THROUGHOUT THE FILM WHICH IS, YOU GUESSED IT, RACIST!

I can’t think of things for the rest. I’m pretty sure Audrey is okay, and to my knowledge, Kida represents no existing culture. Also two of these are from the same film so I’m not sure both would count.

Also when you consider how many films Disney (and non-Disney) have made, a few teeny inclusions of POC don’t count for much. There are a STAGGERING number of white characters (and since you’re specifying WOMEN of color, pretty much all media is a giant sausagefest) by comparison.

Do not tell me that POC are well-represented. Just don’t.

(Source: rajkumaris)

I’m sorry, but no you cannot & never will you be.

westendblues:

biggadjeworld:

“Gypsy”

What is a “gypsy”?
Some will have you believe that simply moving frequently, or wearing boho-esque clothing will make you a “gypsy”. I have read countless websites about Pagan “gypsy” magic, and articles on how to dress “gypsy”. I’m here to tell you; you’re doing it wrong!

So, you want to be a “gypsy”? Well, you can’t. Not only are you not a “gypsy”, but you can never become a “gypsy”.

This little word, “gypsy”, makes my skin crawl. It causes aches in my heart and beats at my soul. I die a little inside everytime I must say or write the word.

“Gypsy” is a racial slur. It is tantamount to the “N” word.

Like the “N” word, “gypsy” was created by people who believed we were sub-human and enslaved us. “Gypsies” were slaves?

Yes!

These “gypsies” you speak of are actually people who belong to the Romani ethnicity. We are an ethnic minority with no nation, no homeland. We trace our ancestry back to Rajasthan in India and parts of what is now Pakistan. This is not speculative. There is no more question as to where “gypsies” came from. This has been proven through extensive DNA and linguistic studies.

You cannot be “gypsy”. You cannot wake up one day, start moving around, and call yourself a “gypsy”. How many people say they want to be African American, or Asian? They don’t. It’s an impossibility.

White female youth pay large sums of money to dress “gypsy”, or what they call boho. Well, Bohemia is a region of the Czech Republic. You cannot be Bohemian either, unless of course you are Czech. There is also a huge problem with equating Boho to “gypsy”.

The Czech people murdered us.

“Vi man sas ek bari familiya,
Murdadas la e kali legiya.”

“I once had a big family,
but the Black Legions murdered them.”

That is a line from our anthem. We may not have a nation, but we have an anthem and a flag. “Gypsy” people have been so greatly oppressed in the Czech Republic that this line made it into our anthem. The Black Legions were a military unit that opreated in the Czech Republic during World War Two. They are responsible for killing nearly ninety-percent of the “gypsy” populations in parts of the Czech Republic.

Not only have you offended me by trying to dress “gypsy”, but calling yourself a “boho-gypsy” just tore my heart into one million pieces.

Before you ask and I have to answer; yes. Yes. Yes, I had family in the Czech Republic and Hungary during World War Two. Yes, they died in concentration camps like Auschwitz and Lety.

We are Romani. We call ourselves Romani. We are the Romani people.

You cannot be “gypsy”. The only way you are “gypsy” is if you are from the Romani ethnic population. Perhaps in your next life you can be born to Romani parents and be “gypsy”, but not in this one. No, you simply cannot.

Why would you want to?

Why would anyone on Earth want to belong to the most oppressed and persecuted race of people on this planet?

I don’t have a choice. I cannot scrub my “gypsy” off. I cannot simply wake up and decide I no longer want to be “gypsy”. It’s my ethnicity.

There are similar words used in Central and Eastern Europe to describe us. They are akin to “gypsy”:

Zigeuner, Czigany, Tigane, Tsigane, etc..

I dare you go to Central and Eastern Europe and utter these words to a “gypsy”. I triple dog dare you. See how much they like their “gypsy” word.

It means slave. Tsigane means slave. Zigeuner means slave. Czigany means slave.

There is a similar word in every single European language of this region. They all mean slave. 

Like “gypsy”, words similar to tsigane have been used as a means of oppression. 
Maybe I can put this into persepctive.

In America, we do the same thing with the “N” word. Not me, personally, but I have heard it from countless Americans. Someone is “N” word rich, that car is “N” word rigged, don’t act like an “N” word.

The same is done with “gypsy” and “tsigane” in Europe. Don’t act ”gypsy” with me, it looks like “gypsies” live here, that’s such a “gypsy” thing. 

Does it make sense now?

Please stop trying to be us. We are not flattered. What truly flatters Romani “gypsy” people is when others try to learn about our true culture. Please don’t argue with us & tell us that you know all about “gypsies” because you belly dance, read Tarot cards, or move a lot. If you really knew so much about “gypsies”, you would afford us the respect of not calling us a racial slur. You would know that there is no such thing as “gypsy” magic, that we are not dirty people who do not bathe, that we do not all steal, and that we have a beautiful culture.

No, you cannot be “gypsy”. Maybe in your next lifetime.

 

take note

(Source: big-gadje-world)

[TW Racism, Fat Shaming] I present to you: white-brite

thisgingersnapsback:

alldolleddown:

Reminding us how awesome and inclusive the feminist community can be.

For those of you who don’t know, white-brite is an individual who recently ‘renounced her race’ and created a (grossly false) privilege hierarchy, as seen below:

Additionally, her blog is filled with page after page of her denying her own privilege, and then demanding that people ‘educate themselves’.

So let’s go through this again.

1. You cannot renounce your race. You and I, as white (passing) people have white privilege, and that privilege is enduring. Every time you deny or ‘renounce’ that privilege, you are contributing to white supremacy, and the oppression of people of color.
2. As an admittedly white, cis, heterosexual woman, you have (aside from white cis men and possibly white trans* men) the most privilege. You are not ‘low on the totem pole’ (which, congrats on the appropriative use of that term).
3. You are the reason feminism is flawed. You are the reason that so many people cannot identify with the movement. By refusing to see how intersectionality actually works, you are actively enabling oppressive structures. You are excluding people, especially WoC, from your movement. You are doing more harm than good (and, quite frankly, I haven’t seen you contribute positively to anything).

I suppose that all of your faux-feminism must be exhausting, especially if you are resorting to the dismissal of valid arguments with (laughably ineffective) insults.

You are not helping anyone. You are actively contributing to the oppression of marginalized groups (among them, PoC and trans* individuals). You are actively making feminism less inclusive.

boom

On Race in the Golden Era of Disney

zerostop:

wordstomeawhisper:

angwe:

simpledisneythings:

**Heavy sigh**

OK, here we go.

Read More

BackstageMagic did a terrific job of summing up all of my thoughts into one big post. If any of you have the time, please read this because I find that it’s important to get your facts straight. I am honestly sick of getting messages about these accusations and I hope that this puts it to rest. 

Look, please do click through and read this, because it’s got some good information. And I do have to say, that given how much Walt relied on the Sherman brothers should be a pretty good sign that he wasn’t much for anti-semitism. (If you don’t know who the Shermans are, go rewatch Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Mary Poppins again. Find a DVD version with extra features.)

I do, however, have to take issue with the apologia for the crows in Dumbo and the entirety of Song of South. Let’s also add to the list: the Indians in Peter Pan, the monkies/apes, especially King Louie from Jungle Book, the siamese cats from Lady and the Tramp, and I’m leaving out the new golden-age stuff (Aladdin, Little Mermaid, etc.)

In fact, here, go read Cracked.com (generally not the best source, but this article is quite worth it) on The 9 Most Racist Disney Characters.

Look, Walt was a really nice guy. I know that. And I’m sure he tried with Song of the South. But it was racist. It really, really was. Even the fact that he made it was racist. The whole patois of Brer Rabbit and Brer Bear/Brer Fox is a white person’s imitation of slaves/former slaves.

We need to get over the fact that admitting something was racist somehow kills it. We need to stop trying to apologize for racism in an earlier era by saying things like, “well it was just a different time.”

No.

Stop.

Admit that it was racist.

Just do it.

Because once you do that, we can then move on to talk about what it says about racism in our history and what we can do to avoid repeating those kinds of mistakes.

The crows in Dumbo are racist. They really are. They present a “jive-talking” stereotype of Blacks that reinforces the racist ideas of the “lazy Black man” and the “entertaining Black man”.

And you see, once we’ve unpacked that racism and identified it, it allows us to do two very important things:

1) Appreciate the message of Dumbo as a story about believing in yourself, while identifying the problematic nature of the depiction of race.

2) Note that racism generally functions in “invisible” ways because that particular portrayal of African American stereotypes was, as the apologists put it, “just how things were”. Exactly. Now that we have identified both the racism and its historical invisibility, we can being to understand how institutional racism functions.

This is probably about as far as I can manage to go with this for right now, but it basically boils down to two things:

1) Walt Disney can still be an inspiring person, even when we acknowledge his shortcomings.

2) Disney movies can still be appreciated and beloved, even when we acknowledge their shortcomings.

So, for the love of all that is holy, please stop trying to write apologias for Disney and his movies. They are flawed, and that is OK. We just need to admit these things.

^^^^^^ YES THANK YOU. Bolded that paragraph for emphasis.

It’s really sad how many notes I had to go through to find at least one person who said this before I went off myself. You DO NOT get to dismiss it with “oh but times were different back then!!” and “but everyone was like that back then!” That doesn’t make it any less racist and offensive.

I love Disney as much as the next person, and these movies continue to be a huge part of my life. But what I can’t understand is why all of these people reblogging this post seem to believe that something has to be completely without flaws to be enjoyable. It’s ok to like things that are problematic, so long as you acknowledge that they ARE in fact problematic. No one’s pretending to be offended, OP. And to many people, they ARE still hurtful - whether because they are reminders of a painful history we can’t shake, or because the effects of “that era” as OP put it never actually went away.

And again - if you’re white and you’re explaining why you think something can’t be racist or offensive to people of color, STOP.

reblogging because while the op had some good things to say it’s important to understand the points that angwe makes.

it is actually possible to enjoy things, but also realize that those things may be flawed. and it’s ok, because nothing is perfect, do yo thang, but try not to defend those flaws, and learn from them instead so you don’t repeat or continue them!

reblogging for later when i don’t have a headache