madgastronomer:

karnythia:

anedumacation:

I GET the historical argument

I do.

If you’re making a highly historically accurate movie about 14th century Scotland or something, I could see why you might argue against casting people of color. Might be kind of strange to see a brown dude in Braveheart, so yeah, fine. I get you. 

But fantasy? 

This is an escapist genre. The entire damn premise is that the laws of the universe are turned on their head. So why are there certain premises, certain assumptions about how our society has always worked, that you can’t leave behind?

Why is your imagination so damn limited?

You can accept a guy moving things telepathically with his brain, but you can’t accept the idea that there might have been black people in Britain a long time ago?

You can accept that there is a weird-ass planet that has winter for nine years, that there are mystical magical dragons in this land, but you see noproblem with the fact that all the good guys are written to be white? And all the bad guys are coded as scary and ethnic? The best that the bad guys get is to be the noble savage?

You can accept the premise that there is an entire race of little people with hairy feet, kind-hearted and silently heroic, and you don’t stop to ask yourself why every single one of them is white? Why the author wrote the story so that all the good guys are white and all the bad guys are black and brown and yellow? 

Seems to me that you’re not trying very hard, if you’re not asking these questions.

Here’s the thing, if we’re going with history there are bones of Africans who traveled to what is now the U.K. as early as the 4th century. Movies & TV shows that ignore the reality of trade between Africa & Rome are the only reason we think it would be weird to see black people in Scotland in the 14th century. Would they have been in every small village? No. But they would have been in major cities & harbor towns buying & selling goods. Some might have been servants or slaves, but some would have also been high ranking individuals. Just look at Queen Charlotte.

People who make the historical argument don’t know any damn history.

(Source: anedumacationisnomore)

izzy-simpson:

Hi

Altair is not white.

He does not have blue eyes, blond hair, or pale skin. 

There’s about 1800 other video game characters with these qualities already, so please stop white washing one of the few non-stereotypical POC video game characters that we have. Please. You guys have so many to chose from, but the rest of us have like, 6 characters who aren’t aliens. So yeah.

Use brown sometimes. 

Ok thanks ♥

GOD YES. People, listen to this post. I am tired of seeing whitewashed versions of well made POC. And I am also sick to death of hearing people complain about someone making an ambiguous character a POC, such as when people complained about gijinkas of Twilight Sparkle having dark skin. 

Can we just not? Or is it impossible for people to stop whitewashing everything they can get their hands on? 

neverthehurricane:

An incomplete list of why that argument is flawed: 

1. Art can be racist. We wouldn’t have a western canon, or any art canon for that matter, if we hadn’t already acknowledged that years ago. Racism doesn’t negate something from being art and art doesn’t negate something from being racist. This is not a platform worth arguing on. 
2. Art has the power and scope to affect society in a way that nothing else does. Nothing is ever ‘just a book’ or ‘just a music video’ or ‘just a song.’ If it’s not important enough to think about, then it wasn’t important enough to be made. 
3. Art is a decent enough gauge of what some members of society were thinking at any given time. We study art to study culture and history. Visual art in particular is not simply a presentation of one’s inner-most feelings and beliefs but a reproduction of the culture the artist lived in and, often, a reproduction of that culture’s historical viewpoints; shorthand that the artist may not have even realize they internalized. 

Also, a bonus tip! This one’s on symbolism but tune in next week for the next dumb racist thing fandom does for the next installment: 

Having darkness represent evil is lazy and trite, but generally acceptable. Having a dark person represent evil is lazy and trite but also racist. Having a non-black person dress up in blackface to represent evil is not only lazy, trite, and racist but also a direct continuation of the same destructive shorthand that cost people their lives and livelihood. The time in-between has not allowed for it to be less offensive or more ironic.

In fact, let’s take this opportunity to segue into a preemptive offense of my least favorite literary device: Irony. In order for irony to work, there must be two layers involved: the implied, often traditional, meaning and the literal one. 

Society at the time of blackface was casually and institutionally racist. The white population had unparalleled privilege over everyone else and were the ones who found any entertainment value in blackface. Society at the time of Florence + the Machine’s video is casually and institutionally racist. The white population has unparalleled privilege over everyone else and she, as a member of that population, is the one who sees any entertainment value in blackface. The only thing that is ironic about this scenario is attempting to use irony in the first place.

As for edginess, using blackface, an old racist visual tradition, in a music video in 2011 is about as edgy as pulling out the clothes that were worn during blackface’s heyday and wearing them in a music video. 

You want to get into a discussion about how edgy or culturally appropriate something is? Try Annie Leibovitz’s 1998 photos of African American comedian Chris Rock in whiteface. Using the shorthand of blackface, which exploited blackness as a source of comedy for white people, and flipping it so a black comedian was put in whiteface as a commentary on modern day comedy actually is edgy and interesting. Or, if you prefer discussions and debates about symbolism, how about Annie Leibovitz’s 1984 shot of African American comedian Whoopi Goldberg simultaneously submerged and emerging from a tub of milk (which Leibovitz specifically stated was meant to symbolize her coming out from all the whiteness in comedy)? Here, the racial overtones of color are being used intentionally and smartly. In 1984! 

Annie Leibovitz is, for anyone who might not be aware, white. 

…But oh, wait, those examples actually give the visual power to the POCs! They legitimately challenge, or document the challenging of, the status quo! I guess something is only considered edgy if it’s someone doing, or defending their right to do, the exact same thing as their ancestors! 

nezua:

Ohio school sorry for making black student ‘slave’

heysoapie:

ethereal-eyes:

theafrosistuh:

stfuconfederates:

The mother of a black Ohio fifth grader assigned to play a slave for a social studies lesson says the school should be more sensitive.

Principal Scott Schmidt of Chapelfield Elementary in Gahanna called Aneka Burton to apologize for what happened to her son, Nikko, on Wednesday. Columbus station WBNS-TV reports Schmidt said no harm was intended.

Ten-year-old Nikko says the class was randomly divided into “masters” and “slaves” and that the only other black student got to be a master. Burton says her son refused to take part in a simulated slave auction and was sent back to his desk.

What. The Fuck.

?

Columbus/Gahanna, Ohio.  What the hell are you doing?! Who…what…THE FUCK?!?!?!

of course the teacher just couldnt figure out for themselves how damaging and insulting this was. and these are the people spending 6 hours a day with our children so that they can “learn”.

Three Cheers for the Munchkin who said, “Hell no I ain’t participating.”

“Schmidt said no harm was intended.” This is the sort of situation where what was “intended” has been wholly engulfed and erased by what was done. Further, in such a moment, even mentioning what was INTENDED is a distraction, irrelevant, and (in fact) insulting. Apologize and sit in silence. Bear it. Like a somber and conscious human. Don’t be a clown, pointing at banana peels.

Why do I have a bad feeling that they’re only sorry about this because they got into trouble over it? :I
Shit like this is why I have very little faith in the human race.

alexandraerin:

How about instead of complaining that there aren’t movies for white people, we do something about it? It’s hard to imagine Hollywood ignoring white people if there were more white people writing scripts, more white people directing movies, more white people ponying up the cash to finance the sorts of pictures that they want to see.

Take Die Hard. Okay, yes, it’s a classic in its own right and it’s hard to do anything that might be perceived as being messing with a classic, but is there any particular reason why Die Hard wouldn’t work with a white character? Or try to imagine Erin Brokovich with a white woman in the lead role. Could it work? Maybe. If not, it would just be a matter of making it work. I’m sure that with the right writer and actress, we could figure out a way to put a “white spin” on the story of an attractive and determined woman who is popular and successful at what she does.

Or look at Ghostbusters. Can you imagine what that movie would be like if most of the main cast were white, except for maybe one token character? And it’s hard to imagine a show like Friends being greenlit with an all-white cast, but there has to be room in an ensemble like that for some white characters.

Of course, it would be really great if we could just have movies that happen to have white people in them in major roles and not have them automatically be shoehorned into some category like “white interest” or “white films”, like being white is a genre or interest or something, but realistically we can’t just expect that the struggles and adventures of white people to hold much general interest with the audience at large. We have to get people used to seeing characters like a “White Batman” or a “White Alice In Wonderland” first, and then maybe one day a white man can play a iconic role like James Bond and it will just be that James Bond happens to be white.

We aren’t there yet, but we won’t ever be there if we don’t get out there and make it happen.

When you go out to the movies, don’t just patronize the giant 24-screen cineplexes that show nothing but foreign films and films by people of color. Look for the little local indie hole-in-the-wall theaters that have movies by (and starring) white, English-speaking American actors.

When you go to the rental place or the video store, ask if they carry films about white people and when they say no, ask them why not. Probably they think that there wouldn’t be enough interest to justify keeping them in stock, but we can prove them wrong.  

Above all, don’t get discouraged. There are signs of progress out there. Did you know that in the Thor movie that came out this year, some of the characters were played by white actors? It’s true!  

dumbthingswhitepplsay:

darkjez:

colorblinding:

darkjez:

*And other POC as well, but it’s among [East] Asian-Americans that I most commonly experience anti-black sentiment.

I’m sorry you’ve had that kind of experience. As an East Asian American myself, I know too well the love/hate relationship frequently experienced between black and APIA communities. I have personally experienced a lot of racism and exotification from blacks, especially when I was much younger — but I know too well that blacks experienced just as much racism and terrible shit from APIA communities. And it is really horrible… because how can we fight white supremacy when we are too busy fighting each other? 

Feeling that sense of solidarity is so much stronger and more empowering than anything else. But when I see posts like this, it breaks my heart as well. Because it reminds me too much that we have far too much work to still do. 

Let the healing begin with us: 

OH MY GOD I LOVE IT

I LOVE THAT EDIT ASDGFSGFDGDS It’s too cute!