You see something absurd. You hear something absurd. You read something absurd = Yeah,TNTG. Posts tagged stereotypes.
Relevant to Australia and also online spaces, and thanks abagond!!! xx
“White women’s tears is one of the main ways White American women have of derailing any talk of racism, particularly their own racism. It is part of a more general pattern of white people making their feelings matter more than the truth – something you see too in the tone argument, for example.
White women’s tears can come about in different ways, but here is the classic scene:
- A white woman says something racist.
- A black woman points it out. (It could be any person of colour but it works best against black women for reasons given below.)
- The white woman says she is not racist and starts crying.
- For added effect the white woman can run out of the room.
- Other whites, particularly white men, come to the aid and comfort not of the wronged black woman but of the racist white woman!
- The black woman, the wronged party, is made to seem like the mean one in the eyes of whites.
- The white woman continues to believe she is not racist.
Tables turned! It works so well that it is hard not to see the tears as a cheap trick.
This is more than just a woman using tears to get her way. It is built on a set of White American ideas about race, listed here in no particular order:
- It works best when these two stereotypes can be applied:
- The Sapphire stereotype - black women as mean, angry and disagreeable
- The Pure White Woman stereotype - white women as these special, delicate creatures who need to be protected at all costs. It is what drives the Missing White Woman Syndrome – and, in the old days, lynchings.
- The r-word: to be called a “racist”, however gently and indirectly, is a terrible, upsetting thing for white people – far worse than, you know,being a racist.
- White people and their feelings are the centre of the known universe.
- Hearts of stone: meanwhile whites seem to have a very, very hard time putting themselves in the shoes of people of colour.
- Moral blindness: white people think they are Basically Good, therefore if someone points out something bad about them it must be out of hatred.
- White solidarity: whites are afraid to stand up against racism, particularly when they are with other whites. Also, they do not like it when you call other whites racists – they seem to take it personally for some reason.
All these things work together to help create the scene laid out above. It is why it works best for young, good-looking white women and why black women’s tears have nowhere the same effect in a white setting.”
One teachers approach to preventing gender bullying in a classroom
READ THIS. seriously, it’s great.
Alie arrived at our 1st-grade classroom wearing a sweatshirt with a hood. I asked her to take off her hood, and she refused. I thought she was just being difficult and ignored it. After breakfast we got in line for art, and I noticed that she still had not removed her hood. When we arrived at the art room, I said: “Allie, I’m not playing. It’s time for art. The rule is no hoods or hats in school.”
She looked up with tears in her eyes and I realized there was something wrong. Her classmates went into the art room and we moved to the art storage area so her classmates wouldn’t hear our conversation. I softened my tone and asked her if she’d like to tell me what was wrong.
“My ponytail,” she cried.
“Can I see?” I asked.
She nodded and pulled down her hood. Allie’s braids had come undone overnight and there hadn’t been time to redo them in the morning, so they had to be put back in a ponytail. It was high up on the back of her head like those of many girls in our class, but I could see that to Allie it just felt wrong. With Allie’s permission, I took the elastic out and re-braided her hair so it could hang down.
“How’s that?” I asked.
She smiled. “Good,” she said and skipped off to join her friends in art.
‘Why Do You Look Like a Boy?’
White-washing and POC
White-washing is a thing. And it is a thing that is quite obvious at times because there will be a character that was one race in a book and somehow managed to be white on screen but other times it is not quite so obvious. Most well structured characters available out there are given to white actors and actresses. However, most well structured characters out there could be played by a POC just as well as it could be any white actor or actress. This is still white-washing. It is a more subtle version of it but it is actually the type of what-washing that happens most often and has been happening for quite some time.
To put it simply, if a show or a film is not period and not specifically culture based then yes, the characters’ races are technically interchangeable. There is no excuse for majority of the characters (especially characters with actual depth to them) being portrayed by non-POC people. This is made obvious time and time again when a white person takes over a role that a POC is intended to play. If you can transition a POC character into a white character so easily then you should be able to quite as easily be able to do the same with a character that you intended to be white, because what else do you know, and make it into a POC character*.
POC actors and actresses are set up with this disadvantage because for some reason non-POC casting directors, directors, and writers seem to think that they are from a different species. Like, they don’t seem to believe that POC go through the same issues as white people. That somehow all POC do is sit around talking about the history of their culture and nothing else ever. And people within this modern western world are told because one race is so different from another that it would be hard to transition the script to make it appropriate and adaptable to more than one race. And they eat this shit up because it is easier than admitting that we live in this internalized racist environment that really and truly does not understand that just because a person is black, Asian, Hispanic, etc doesn’t mean that they have all of these stereotyped problems that are placed upon them; and that they are allowed to just wipe their hands of it because they couldn’t possibly understand. POC are just as three-dimensional and complex in real life as non-POC people are so why are they getting treated as if that is anything but the case when it comes to the screen.
People pick up what they see on television. People pick up what they see on film. Yes, many are able to separate fiction from reality but the fact of the matter is what we see there bleeds into what we believe about the world, culture, and ourselves. Not having an appropriate representation of POC in film and television shapes the view point of how a non-POC will view them. Not having an appropriate representation of POC in film and television actually shapes how POC view themselves and their races in comparison to a non-POC. And honestly, it is rarely a kind interpretation that anyone can take from seeing a screen full of white people actually being complex and intellectual and a POC character being a sideshow. Nothing good will ever come from that.
* And yes, it has happened before but on so few occasions that I can count them on one hand so let’s not.
stfuconservatives:nova-bright:glamaphonic:roxanneritchi:
An alarming number of romantic comedies are actually horror stories in disguise.
“ Most state universities and all colleges built before 1860 were built with slave money, or built by actual slaves if its an ivy league school. there is no such thing as a slave. but there is a chained human who is subjected to someone’s evil twisted thoughts. we still haven’t dealt with that yet. and sometimes blacks are seen as the criminals, but they did not do a lot of the things they are accused of. the hypersexuality and hyper violence stereotype was forced through rape and murder for hundreds of years. and it wasn’t the blacks doing it.
— Ma’at Sesh (via freedomoverfear). yup.
Found this image courtesy of Clutch Magazine, with the following commentary:
While I nodded my head at each of items listed on the comic, I wondered if advertisers can ever effectively market things to African Americans, and specifically Black women, without falling back on tired stereotypes (uh, hello sassy Tide girl).
Although I understand the need to want to target specific demographics, when will companies realize that Black women shop, go to restaurants, and clean their homes just like everyone else?
What kind of advice would you give advertisers looking to market to Black women?
( Comic originally from Kiss My Black Ads)
what do you think?
#lifestory
Tropes vs. Women: #6 The Straw Feminist
The Straw Feminist trope is a deliberately created, exaggerated caricature of a feminist that is used to undermine and ridicule feminist movements.
More info and Full video transcript is available at FeministFrequency.com
How to Hit on An Asian Girl
