Minorities are scarce within nation’s major environmentalist groups : http://wapo.st/ZNAduj

abhortion:

freedom-is-a-human-right:

I know I’ll be unfollowed for this but I don’t fucking care.

Read More

Wow.

Yeah, definitely something people need to think about. Also, I have a severe problem with people who deny or try to reduce the horrors that Japan committed during WWII…From the Nanking Massacre to the comfort women to the “medical” experiments to the death marches. Also, the fact that the Japanese government still largely refuses to apologize in any way for these, even when faced directly with survivors and the descendants of survivors (such as Iris Chang).

Additionally, it is actually pretty racist that these SJW seem to believe that all people of POC were all just these docile, peaceful creatures until white people came along and taught us bad things. Nope, that’s not how history operates.

I am really appalled by the number of people in Jewish community who are defending Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Hershel Schachter in his recent use of the Yiddish word “shvartze” to refer to black inmates. Sorry but there is absolutely no defending that.  (For those who don’t know, it is basically the Yiddish version of the N-word)

The rest I am putting under a cut because it talks about child sexual abuse.

Read More

dendroica:

publicshaming:

What do you do when the Catholic church selects it’s first Latin American pope? Obviously…YOU TWEET RACIST SHIT:

And then there were the SLEW of people who thought the Pope was Mexican because you know, it’s all the…

Great…People are racist AND stupid. Regardless of how you feel about the Catholic Church or Catholicism, this is ridiculously offensive.

Nevermind the fact that Latin American has about half of the world’s Catholics. Throw in the growing number of African Catholics and you could pretty much say that Catholicism is (numbers-wise) a religion ardently followed primarily by people of colour. So, maybe you need to get the hell out of that religion, racists.

howthemidwestwaswon:

0prah:

publicshaming:

It’s the day of Obama’s second Presidential Inauguration! As Obama took the oath of office for his second term, the country came together as one and…

Oh wait, lmao, silly me. That didn’t happen. Instead here’s a collection of people who either fantasized or outright threatened President Barack Obama’s assassination (and note: I only picked tweets that fell right before, during, or immediately after the Inauguration itself!) …

wwwwwwwoooooooooooowwwwwwwww

I hate everyone.

npr:

Music writer Laina Dawes is a die-hard Judas Priest fan. She’s all about the band’s loud and fast guitars, the piercing vocals — and she loves to see the group perform live.

Now, a fact that shouldn’t matter: Dawes is a black woman. This, she says, can make things uncomfortable on the metal scene. She says she’s been verbally harassed and told she’s not welcome.

Interview: Laina Dawes, Author Of ‘What Are You Doing Here?’

this-is-not-jewish:

Please note up front that I am not Palestinian, or Arab, or Muslim.  I am an American Jew.  So any list I draw up with this title is doomed to be incomplete, because there are a lot of facets of the Palestinian experience that I just don’t see.

HOWEVER.

I’ve seen a shocking amount of orientalist racism come up in discussions of Israel in the past few days, and it bothers me.  A lot.  I really want to believe that most of the people who express such sentiments are acting in misguided good faith, so this post will present some guidelines for what to absolutely never do, along with the reasoning why the actions I list are problematic.  (And bad-faith racist assholes, you can no longer plead ignorance if you engage in any of these no-nos.  Consider yourselves warned.)  In no particular order:

1. Don’t use any kind of slur.  This should be an absolute no-brainer.  If you ever feel the need to call anyone a slur, shut the fuck up immediately and go jump in the nearest lake.
2. Don’t call Palestinians “animals” or “savages.” This is a dehumanizing tactic, used to justify or diminish attacks against Palestinians on grounds that they aren’t really human and don’t require the same consideration as people like us.  This is racist.  Always.  In every context.
3. Don’t claim Palestinians don’t really love their children or don’t really value human life. Another dehumanizing tactic is to point to “unnatural” behavior on the part of the targeted group as proof that they are less human.Don’t do it.  The fact that anyone can repeat this claim even after the front page pictures of Jihad Masharawi carrying his son Omar just boggles my mind.
4. Don’t claim Palestinian children are “taught to hate” or somehow less innocent than other children.  Another dehumanizing tactic, and a particularly disgusting one, as it’s typically used to downplay the deaths of Palestinian children.  If you feel the need to say that the deaths of certain children aren’t really as sad as others, ever, you need to walk away from the discussion at hand.
5. Don’t say “Muslim” when you mean Palestinian.  I see this a lot.  Palestinians are mostly Muslim, but there are plenty of Palestinian Christians, too, as well as other groups.  (There were even Palestinian Jews, whose communities predated British control of the area, although needless to say they are now Israelis rather than Palestinians in the current sense.) Not all Palestinians are Muslim, and not all Muslims are Palestinian.  They aren’t interchangeable terms.
6. Don’t say “Arab” when you mean Palestinian. Arab is a wider term, encompassing an entire ethnic group and bloc of countries.  Palestinians are a distinct group within the Pan-Arab world, with their own unique culture, customs, and Arabic dialect.  Use the appropriate term in the appropriate context, rather than making blanket statements about wider groups than you intend.
7. Don’t claim Islam is inherently violent and evil. People who believe this are comparing Islam as practiced in poverty-stricken areas to Christianity or Judaism as practiced in affluent areas.  See the problem there?  People who are poor and oppressed, on the whole, engage in more violence and subscribe to more extremist forms of religions—regardless of what religions they practice, because the real problem isn’t the religion, it’s the poverty and oppression.Attacking an entire religion in this way is not only based on apples-to-oranges nonsense, but tinged with racism as well.  (Before you protest that last assertion, look up just how many of the Islamic practices people freak out about are also practiced by Jews, then see if you can still come up with a reason for attacking only Islam that doesn’t rest on the fact that the stereotypical Jew is white-passing but the stereotypical Muslim is not.)
8. Don’t say or imply that all Palestinians are terrorists or support terrorists.  It’s not true, and it smacks of dehumanizing (“we don’t need to treat them with the same consideration we give people like us because they’re inherently evil and violent”).  I’m betting many of you would rather not be judged by some of the actions of your current government, so don’t do the same thing to others.
9. Don’t use any variant of the “we made the desert bloom” trope. This is basically the same racist argument European settlers in the Americas used—claiming they deserved the land because they made better use of it than the people whose land it originally was.  In fact, Palestinians were farming, tending orchards, and raising livestock on the land well before Israel existed.  Even if they weren’t, “I took it because I could make better use of it” wouldn’t get you off a theft charge in court, so why is it relevant here?
10. Don’t use any variant of the “a land without a people for a people without a land” trope. See the previous point.  There were most definitely people on the land before Israel.  To deny that is to erase the existence of Palestinians and their history.  Erasure of a culture is never okay.
11. Don’t claim there is “no such thing” as Palestine or Palestinians.  This also applies to people who put Palestine and Palestinian in quotation marks.  Quibbling with the terms people choose to describe themselves and their culture is another form of erasure.  Palestinians obviously exist.  You don’t have the right to decide what they can and can’t call themselves.
12. Don’t say Palestinians have no historical connection to the land or should go back to “their real countries.”  Again, Palestinians lived in the land that is now Israel and the Palestinian territories well before Israel existed.  That IS their country.  Once again, the words Palestinian and Arab are not interchangeable.  Just because Palestinians are Arab doesn’t mean they have the same culture and history as Arabs in other countries, any more than being a white American gives someone the same culture and history as white Europeans.
13. Don’tcall Palestinians “Amalek” or cite Torah/Bible verses calling for the extermination of non-Jewish groups in Canaan.  Calling for genocide isn’t remotely fucking acceptable, ever, and couching it in religion doesn’t make it any more so.  I can’t believe I even have to say this.  STOP.
14. Don’t visually depict Palestinians using Arab racial stereotypes.  Don’t sexualize or exoticize Palestinian women. Don’t portray Palestinian men as leering, claw-fingered, keffiyah-and-robe-wearing, hook-nosed villains with bombs strapped to their chests.  Avoid using camels, tents, or polygamy imagery.
15. Don’t demand that Palestinians or their allies take public note of Israeli casualties, affirm Israel’s right to exist, or publicly repudiate Hamas.People who make this demand are assuming that Palestinians are terrible people or undeserving of being heard out unless they “prove” themselves acceptable by Zionists’ standards.
16. Don’t blow off Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims if they tell you what you are saying is racist or Islamophobic. Not all pro-Israel speech is racist, but some undeniably is.  Actually give the accusation your consideration and hear the accuser out.  If they fail to convince you, that’s fine.  But at least hear them out (without talking over them) before you decide that.

I’m sure this isn’t a comprehensive list, but it covers all the hard-and-fast rules I can think of.  (I welcome input for improving it, particularly from Palestinians, Muslims, or Arabs.  I don’t claim to be an expert on any culture but my own, and I definitely don’t intend to talk over you!)

But wait!  Why should I care about any of this?  Israel is defending itself against rockets!

You should care because this kind of behavior tarnishes your cause and makes people ashamed to be Zionist.  You should care because even though Israel has every right to exist within its legal boundaries, Israel’s handling of the territories and the Palestinians has been brutal, oppressive, violent, and unjust, and behavior like the above just heaps insult on a deeply injured people.  You should care because if you expect Palestinians and their allies not to be anti-Semitic, you’d better extend the same courtesy and not be racist.  You should care because extreme rhetoric on either side makes the possibility of peace more remote and unlikely, and that hurts EVERYONE.

So, TL;DR version:

1. Do go ahead and criticize Hamas.
2. Don’t use racist or Islamophobic stereotypes or tropes.
3. Don’t conflate Arabs, Palestinians, and Muslims as if they were interchangeable terms or groups.
4. Don’t dehumanize Palestinians.
5. Don’t erase their existence, history, or culture.
6. Do engage Palestinians and their allies in conversation on the issues of Israel and of racism, rather than simply shutting them down for disagreeing.
7. Do try to be sensitive to the fact that Palestinians are largely powerless, poverty-stricken, and violently oppressed, and that any “war” or negotiation between Israel and the Palestinians can in no possible way be construed as a meeting of equals.

May there be peace in our days.

I am not fucking “exotic”, I am not an extra notch in your radicalism belt (2-in-1!), I am not here to show off to your friends or shock your family with. I don’t want to fucking talk about privilege and oppression with you.  

Right now, you think I’m cute and harmless…I’m small, not muscular, and am visibly queer-looking (not by choice, I’m a pre-everything trans man who gets read as butch lesbian or “stud”). I’m easy to infantalize and I don’t scare you because my race isn’t threatening as long as I look like a boy rather than a man. I’m like a goddamn Pit Bull or Rottweiler puppy to you.

However, if I looked like my father or younger brother (aka big, tall [cis] black men), you probably wouldn’t give a shit about me. I’d probably make you nervous just by being around, whether you admit it or not. You probably wouldn’t even consider dating me, because I don’t look “harmless” anymore.  I look like Public Enemy #1.  Nothing scarier than a brown man in this society.

Sorry, but as much as your “I’m so anti-racism and fight against oppression!”-self may be supposedly against it, you’d probably lock your car as soon as I passed by. If you saw me standing on a street corner in a hoodie, you might think that I was making a drug deal rather than say…Waiting for a family member or a cab to come pick me up.

What about the needs of black/POC trans men?  Who is around to make sure that we have resources if we get profiled? What are we supposed to do if we get pulled over (driving-while-black is a regular series of stories we exchange in my family) and our ID still reads “female”? What about if we are immigrants (of any status) who transitioned? What if we get flagged trying to use airlines because we are of Middle Eastern descent and our passport situation is still iffy? What happens when we get arrested? As men of colour, we are especially targeted when it comes to this stuff…And it seems like we just get thrown into it as soon as we start to be read as male, without any real kind of resources. 

And what if we’re not straight (such as in my case)? I don’t know how to navigate the queer male dating world as a black man…With all the myths and stereotypes that come with it (like that Asian men are supposed to be submissive, black and latino men are supposed to be aggressive tops with huge dicks)….And the “no rice, no chocolate” and whatnot on hook-up ads.  What should we do if we get attacked by straight men of colour for not being heterosexual? What about the emphasis on hyper-masculinity that may be in our cultures?

What if we come from a very religious or traditional family?  What if we were expected to get married and have children? What if we are escaping from a situation that involves an arranged marriage?

We also have to learn to combat the internalized racist misandry that we have been raised with.  We’ve been told that black and latino men are lazy, dangerous, and unintelligent…That they are automatically bad fathers and terrible providers. That they should be feared.

What about our body image issues, since the vast majority of what I see are skinny, white trans guys?  I don’t look like that and I never will…And I feel really undesirable because of it. What will chest surgery scars look like with my skin tone?

I’m not the only trans person at my college…But I’m the only trans student of colour at my college and it really fucking sucks.  Other queer students at my college seem to have a really hard time wrapping their heads around how the two things could connect to make things things harder on me. When I voice my fears or disapproval, I get called “bleak” and “only seeing the bad”.

Here is a very well-spoken video by another black trans guy for you all to watch: http://youtu.be/6toY1gtEW-w

rainshanks:

curq-art:

Actually, it’s called The White House because during the War of 1812 it was partially burned down and then rebuilt. Upon that rebuilding it was painted white, but it had formerly been brown and referred to as “The President’s House” but when it was painted white people kept referring to it as “The White House” so Teddy Roosevelt had it officially renamed. 

Not because the president is supposed to be white, you stupid racist assholes. 

>”not trying to sound rasict”

Then what the fuck are you trying to sound like?

Excuse me while I go bang my head against a wall for a while in lieu of killing people.

“For all of you who aren’t aware Der Yid is the largest Yiddish paper in the US, founded by Satmer Chassidim, but read by many in the Yiddish speaking charedi world.

I wish I could say I’m surprised, by this….but instead I find myself merely disappointed.  Disappointed that racism is so accepted in the community that they are willing to use such extreme language in community publications.  Disappointment in the utter lack of embarrassment in printing the “n word”, shvartze, or comparing black people to animals because the publishers know that such racism is prevalent and accepted in their community.  Disappointed that these words get tossed around with such frequency that no one would bat an eye at their usage.”

This kind of shit needs to called out whenever possible. This is absolutely unacceptable and goes against (what I believe of) Judaism. 

What disgusts me even more is when members of the community try to defend this kind blatent racism. It is not Judaism, nor does it help the Jewish people. 

“Do you think the minorities who live around frum communities don’t know how you perceive them?  Do you think they don’t know what you mean when you say shvarzte (here’s a clue…a lot of them do)?  Do you think that doesn’t add to the tension in your community?  Do you think that perhaps, this makes Orthodox Jews look ignorant and bigoted?  That maybe, instead of being a light unto the nations…Orthodox Jews are perceived as racist, know nothings?”

purepopfornowpeople:

modernistwitchery:

marsandrist:

cundtcake:

Wait so the fuckyeahhbogirls tumblr reblogged this from muslim tumblrs while deleting all their criticism?

Fuck you you fucking assholes.

That is so not surprising, because she’s chubby and let’s face it, beige looking at best, she’s obviously infallible to a large group of white women.  Disgusting.

I will say it again: fuck you, Lena Dunham.

Well, this just solidified my decision to never watch Girls.

I can’t get over how many people worship this woman and her terrible show.

While I was in DC this afternoon/evening in my favourite DC music shop, a crazy dude came in and started harassing/rambling at the guy in the shop.  When he was told to leave, the crazy dude shouted right before exiting, “That’s freedom and you better get used to it, because I’m (?) going to be President when they kick that fucking nigger out of the White House”.

Figured I would share that with you all.