Tag: white privilege

There is this cis, straight, white man from an upper middle class background who I work with, and every time someone says something he doesn’t like or doesn’t agree with, he says they’re ridiculous, or silly, or stupid, or emotional, or his favorite, irrational. Incidentally, the only other cis, straight, white man in our workplace is the boss, who never tells him to stop, or that he’s being inappropriate. When he acts up at work, if I can get away with it, I read your blog for comfort.

*hugs and hugs and hugs* Ahhhh, Nonnie – I feel for you so much right now!! People like that are just SO draining to be around, *hugs you some more*. I wish I could sit down with you with a glass of wine and you could just let it all out at me. It’s so tiring to fight constantly to be heard, and even more tiring to be angry and frustrated constantly – and then told you’re being irrational for being angry and frustrated. 

God, that’s the most dismissive and infuriating term: ‘irrational’. Because if he can dismiss what you are saying as ‘irrational’ just because he doesn’t like it, it means he is never forced to think about it. And so his bubble of hubris, ignorance and privilege remains unpopped. 

I am really, really glad that my blog can provide you an escape from that. I hope things improve for you at work. *more hugs* May he sit on a tack. And may your hard work be recognised by your boss, and you get an unexpected raise. *even more hugs*

I realized something when I was re-reading LOTR/The Hobbit/ & the Silmarillion. Most of the elves are described as pale, so it’s possible that most are white, but both the hobbits and dwarves have mentions of a lot of racial diversity, and the men do as well. POC dwarves and hobbits! Sorry, I was really excited and my cousin said that it didn’t matter, but representation always matters.

(I…. probably take a lot of liberties with Tolkien’s fave word to describe Elves, hahaha. Well, ‘fair’ can also mean ‘beautiful’! 😉 PLUS, there’s that amazing resource that is askmiddleearth’s series on racism! It confirms and/or suggests alllllll sorts of possibilities!

That’s awesome Nonnie! And yes, it matters. I agree with you. It matters so much.

rikkannon:

dear anti-racist white allies, stop othering yourself from white people. stop pretending you aren’t “that” white person. you are that white person. most likely, the majority of your friends are white. most likely, you appropriate aave. most likely, you still accidentally drop the n-word when singing along to the latest radio hiphop hit. most likely, you will get just the slightest bit uncomfortable around men of color at night. most likely, you have said something in the past month that relies on a racial stereotype. most likely, your attraction to poc has shades of exotification. most likely, your interest in poc cultures can border on cultural appropriation.

i know because those are all things i occasionally find myself guilty of, and it’s not okay.

stop forgetting that a huge part of being an ally is identifying what you do wrong, checking your privilege, and trying your hardest to overcome it so as not to perpetuate those harmful behaviors. being an ally is not about getting social justice points. being an ally is not about a warm fuzzy feeling for helping those less privileged than you. being an an ally is not about being superior to people in your privilege group. being an ally is about helping destroy the privilege you live in and it is just as internal as it is external.

100% DONE

dain-mothafocka:

arianaofimladris:

arafinwean:

tolkienfish:

I get that people are looking for more fantasy with more diversity. I AM SORRY but Middle Earth is another world with their own races and they have their own developed history with racial problems with Elves, Dwarves, Men, Hobbits, the Dunadiain, Wizards, and Orcs. The universe itself was creating in Tolkien’s back in 

1937. There were much different standards in that time. You wont find racial diverse Hobbits in most cases because Hobbits are their own race and have their own commings and goings. I’m sorry. It’s how Tolkien created it. Middle Earth itself is it’s whole other world that is not our own. 

If you want to know more about the races in middle earth READ THE SILMARILLION!  

You’re right, I’m 100% done too.

Done with you.

Because I dunno if you actually bothered to read The Silmarillion but like, NO WHERE IN THAT BOOK DOES IT DESCRIBE THE CHARACTERS SKIN COLOR. We could have elves of different races because gasp, there are different races of elves!!! Who is to say the Vanyar aren’t black after all.

And honestly there are brown hobbits (the harfoots) or did you fucking forgetting forget and where blinded by your racism. Fuck.

Also just because there were different standards in that time doesn’t mean that something wasn’t fucking racist jesus.

Dear God, I was really hoping to avoid this kind of discussion in my beloved fandom…

Vanyar, for what I know, were fair skinned and there were blondes among them. As for people, there were those who then betrayed Feanorians, and they were described as having darker skin.

But seriously – do we have to put real world’s racism into fictional world that had its own problems (AND, as it was pointed out, its own ways of racism)? What is wrong with accepting the book the way it is, even if it contains mostly sort of white characters? Or are you telling me that there is something wrong in feeling strong bond with character that has different skin color or different sex? Most of the characters I love are men, while I’m a woman, and I never felt it’s wrong. 

As for Middle-Earth itself, I can imagine people with darker skn, those from East. But I cannot imagine black elves. And it’s not me being racist, it’s mostly looking where Tolkien got his inspirations. His elves come from celtic and nordic folklor, and seriously, how many Celts 1550 or so years ago were black/eastern? Tolkien got his inspirations from certain cultures, so it is quite understandable that the readers subconsciously (and I think correctly) see similarities between those two. If you read about Vikings, or when you read northen mythology, do you expect the gods to be black?

So much for not finidng hate in my fandom.

Look guys, I found another one.

*breathes in and out very slowly*

Right. 

I have already covered my feelings on this turd of an argument. Enjoy.

(

(and it bears adding, too; Please realise that, by not recognising that you yourself are blindly headcanoning the whiteness of all characters, you are perpetuating the invisibility of white privilege. White is also a race. You have a race. You are also a member of a race. Congrats, race is not something that “does not apply” to you bc you are white. 

Yes, as much as I love him and his work, Tolkien failed people of colour *70 years ago*. Well done pointing that out. Do you actually intend to perpetuate that failure? 

You are ascribing a race and a corresponding skin colour to fictional people. Why can’t others do likewise? Why can’t you share?

The fact that you cannot imagine a black elf does not make you ‘correct’. It only displays the limitations of your imagination.)

theantioppressionnetwork:

[image descriptions: seven colour gif set of Michael Kimmel speaking in front of a chalkboard.

gif 1 says IN TEXT: Each Week, eleven women and me got together, we would read some text in feminist theory and talk about it. And during one of our meetings I witnessed a conversation between two women that changed everything for me. END TEXT.

gif 2 says IN TEXT: One of the women was white and one was black. The white woman said …, ‘All women have the same experience as women. All women face the same oppression as women and therefore all women have a kind of intuitive solidarity or sisterhood.’ END TEXT.

gif 3 says IN TEXT: And the black woman said, ‘I’m not so sure. Let me ask you a question-’ So the black woman says to the white woman, ‘When you wake up in the morning and you look in the mirror, what do you see?’ And the white woman said, ‘I see a woman.’ And the black woman said, ‘You see, that’s the problem for me, because when I wake up in the morning and when I look in the mirror,’ she said, ‘I see a black woman. To me race is visible, but to you race is invisible. You don’t see it.’ END TEXT.

gif 4 says IN TEXT: And then she said something really startling, she said, ‘That’s how privilege works. Privilege is invisible to those who have it.’ END TEXT.

gif 5 says IN TEXT: …Now remember, I was the only man in this room. So I heard this and I kind of just spontaneously groaned and put my head in my hand and someone said, ‘Well, what was THAT reaction??’ And I said, ‘Well when I wake up in the morning and I look in the mirror I see a human being.’ END TEXT.

gif 6 says IN TEXT: I’m kind of a generic person y’know, I’m a middle class, white, man. I have no [visible] class, no race, no gender. I’m universally generalizable. END TEXT.

gif 7 says IN TEXT: So I like to think that that was the moment that I became a[n aware] middle class, white, man. That class and race and gender weren’t about other people but they were about me and I had to start thinking about them and it had been privilege that head kept it invisible to me for so long. END TEXT. END DESCRIPTION.]

whileyouweresleeping:

Deconstructing Masculinity & Manhood with Michael Kimmel @ Dartmouth College

Boom. 

— From NYC.