Story time because my dash is all Ferguson, as it should be.
So I got to study abroad in London back in 2005, which was the best 3 weeks of my life. Now I went to Iowa State University, which is a predominantly white school, so I was the only black person in the group, which whatever, I was used to it by then (I had been going to the school since 2001).
Anyhow, one day, one of the guys in the group (I should preface this by saying he was American so you don’t assume it was someone overseas) was talking to everyone. I was coming into our place, and I don’t remember what I had been doing, and I don’t know how the conversation even started with him, but I heard him say something that I still remember, to this day.
“There’s hardly any racism since 1950.”
Now I’m not the kind of person who snaps, as you’ve seen from my rants on here they’re usually calm, and thought out, and I’m a pretty nice person. But man, all I remember feeling is fire, and anger, and just… the NERVE of this man to say this. I remember coming into the room like a hurricane, like, “WHAT?!”
And his response was, “Well people aren’t being hung anymore.”
And the scary thing is that it’s 2014 and racism is still huge and people are getting killed because of the color of their skin, and as scary as these killers are I find it even more horrifying that people, honestly, believe that it’s “no big deal” because “it’s not how it was in the 50s.” We’ve had our civil rights movements and we have black history month and Martin Luther King Jr., so now people think, “Well it’s better because of that stuff, yes?”
The fact that people believe that since history happened, things have improved, disgusts me. If you can’t open your eyes and see the ugly that’s going on all because “improvements” have occurred, then you need to wake up. History doesn’t mean the problem is solved. History was a step. You have to keep making those steps, not standing still. If you think racism is dead because of history as there are people being killed because they “look suspicious (are black)” then you need to put that beat up old book down and take a harder look at the world around you.
There’s hardly any racism? Oh please. There’s hardly any excuse for such blindness.
please stop calling Black children who have different interests and tastes white
it’s damaging and alienating
Forever reblog this because it is ON POINT.
God. Just. Can we talk about this? Because the number of times I’ve been told that I was acting white or that I sounded white is just…
He’s just mad because he can’t acquire all the apple juice that I’m acquiring. (x)
I’m going to use “apple juice” instead of “racist” from now on.
how quickly they forget
Actually that was my exact thought process when I saw this movie and it got to this scene.
So in case you missed it (though it’s been on my blog all day) I got some pretty racist/fat bashing remarks about my Princess Peach cosplay, ranging from calling me a whale, to Precious, to using the frying pan to fry chicken, and all sorts of things. It’s been blowing up quite a bit since a bunch of you are apparently amazing individuals who I want to snuggle, because you’ve been reblogging and commenting and all sorts of things.
So in honor of this I made fried chicken, you know, since that’s all us fat black gals eat.
Here’s all sorts of links:
The post with the fried chicken comment and other un-creative cracks at me.
I would post everyone’s responses but there have seriously been an overwhelming amount, so thank you all :)
Edit: Added some cosplay pictures so you can see the costume and such :)
Edit Number Two: My Cosplay Page, I can’t believe I forgot to link it!
Stop being racist by drawing Sailor Moon black, shes Japanese and should only be depicted as such.
Anonymousoh. this again.
The anonymous actually has a good and valid point. You racebending Sailor Moon who is a Japanese woman, is indeed offensive.
I’m fully aware of what her ethnicity is. I’m not trying to erase the fact that she’s Japanese. so what…am I not allowed to draw a black Sailor Moon, even if I’m fully aware of this? I wanted to re-imagine and adapt her as a race that matched my own, simple as that. how is that wrong or offensive? is this harming anybody? it doesn’t change the fact that she is canonically Japanese, we know this. so what. is. the. problem?
By racebending her, you are erasing the fact that she is Japanese. That’s kind of the point like wow.
Make up your own character. How. hard. is that?
NO. it’d be more “erasing” if I didn’t acknowledge that she was Japanese, and dismissed her as being “white” simply because she has blue eyes and blonde hair in an anime. I know better than that.
like I said, if I’m RE-IMAGING her as being black, while that still doesn’t change the fact she IS Japanese CANONICALLY and I’m fully aware of this, how is that wrong?!
You know if we’re going to get really, really picky about this, only Japanese people should cosplay Sailor Moon then, right? No more white girls cosplaying Sailor Moon. That’s racist, right? Because she’s Japanese.
Also, isn’t Sailor Pluto dark skinned in the manga? So what happened with that in the anime? Is the anime racist then, too?
Also, it’s skin color you’re debating, not ethnicity. There ARE dark skinned Japanese people. They do exist. So it’s not race you’re even talking about, it’s skin color, which makes you the racist one.
music-thestrongestformofmagic:
((I’m sorry but this kind of thing has to stop.
make stereotypes like “black people only eat watermelon and chicken” and you get attacked for being racist.
make stereotypes like “White girls take pictures of their coffee and stick it on instagram” and you get a 5000+ note text post.
“Gay people disgust me” = attacked by everyone on tumblr as a homophobic fuckhead.
“Straight people disgust me” = “omg lol so funny” 5 billion notes
If this said “black teenage girls” or “gay teenage girls” or ANYTHING like that everyone would be up in arms.
I appreciate that “white people” enslaved millions and were generally shit to what they consider to be minorities. I understand that. But that doesn’t give anyone the right to be racist/sexist/phobic in the other direction.
Racism is wrong
Sexism is wrong
Stereotypes and hatred based on sexuality or gender orientation is wrong.
And here’s the thing nobody seems to get; It’s wrong in both directions.
Equality is about everyone being equal while accepting that we have cultural or physical or any other kind of differences. It’s not about preaching hatred for another kind of person - I believe that’s the kind of thing we’re meant to be fighting against.
This has been a rant from someone who’s sick of the whole white girls thing. It wouldn’t be funny if it was anyone else, it’s not fucking funny when it’s them.))
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The solution to racism/sexism/homophobia/all that’s in between is NOT by bashing the majority. It’s just not. That gets you nowhere. No, actually, it makes it worse. If you want more support and understanding, then stop doing stuff like this.
Bless you, Carlton Banks. I could go into a rant but there’s no need you covered it all (that and I’ve made this rant before about how I’m odd because I’m black and female and geeky like, I’m sorry, I’ll go audition for the Maury show or something would that make you feel more comfortable with me?)
Bioshock Infinite and Racism - Part I
I wanna play this so bad
I don’t think I ever want to play this game. Especially with the first pic of what looks like a witch hunt and 2 black people about to be burned at the stake…
This left a bad taste in my mouth…I don’t want to play this shit.
Reblogging for BigBlackWolfe to see the racist fuckery in Bioshock Infinite.
Also, I’m seeing a whole lot of people calling individuals like myself who don’t want to buy this game for the blatant racism ‘stupid’
FUCK YOU.
I have EVERY FUCKING RIGHT not to want to buy a goddamn video game because of this shit. EVERY RIGHT.
These same mothafuckers be on that ‘freedom of speech’ bullshit, but when POC use it to say “Nope, not here for this shit. It’s racist,” they want to shout us down.
FUCK YOU.
I’ll spend my 70 dollars on something that is WORTH MY FUCKING TIME.
I GIVE NARY A FUCK ABOUT THE PRESHUZ STORYLINE
The racist imagery in this game was completely unnecessary and I bet they did it to be controversial on fucking purpose without any regard to how that would make people feel. Or with regard, but not for any concern more so than their own shits and giggles.
Like this game could have been just as good without the overblown racist imagery of Black people.
I mean I get they’re trying to show the whole “racism is bad look at this it’s bad” thing but come the fuck on, this is unnecessary
It wasn’t “unnecessary.” Racism isn’t something that needs to be explained subtly. The game is purposefully doing the opposite of what mass media today does: it’s not sugarcoating it. Columbia as a city is meant to represent the absolute worst of American history and American society, and that is exactly why it doesn’t hold back punches. A lot of our media likes to white wash history and dance around issues of racism in the very concepts of what it means to be American, but this game actually goes out of its way to show how unethical this ideology is.
The game actually does a great job of pointing out problems in our social foundations of racism, sexism, corporate capitalist abuse, religious zealotry. I often hear other P.O.C. on Tumblr complain that the media is skewed to avoid making American and white history in general look bad. If anything, people should play this game, because it doesn’t pretend like American society is perfect: it’s a game that takes the concepts that built this nation to show how morally depraved they really are.
Columbia isn’t there for the player to like, and its citizens aren’t there for the player to want to emulate. It’s actually there as an example of exactly what is wrong with white colonialism, racism, xenophobia, white supremacist attitudes, etc.
This game is actually being attacked by white supremacists because they think it’s “anti-white,” since the game doesn’t pander. It’s brutal about its portrayal, but for a reason. A good reason.I was shocked reading the preceeding comments before the last because I thought it was very clear, in even just the screen captures, that the point was to show how lurid racism was at that time. That it was simply a cold, honest portrayal of a sick philosophy at a turning point when it was still bold— not showing something you should agree with and espouse. And… I’ve been under the impression that the Bioshock games tend to present awful communities like that as examples of terrible things people tend to do but shouldn’t? The hedonism and avarice of it, the absurd cruelty of it, etc. That people put happy faces on absolute barbarism. This is something that needs displayed in all its disgusting glory because, indeed as the person previous said, our media today tries to dance around it, sugar coat it, hide it and pretend this ugly chapter never ever happened.
Presenting ugly, disgusting behaviors and ideologies for what they are is a means of educating people against those behaviors. When we hide and sugar coat everything, people put such great distance between themselves and it that they end up doing it, but don’t consider themselves worse for it. If you really think that pointing out how horrible something is by example means you’re being told to go do that, you’re a fucking moron. I’m sorry— but seriously. You can’t hide from everything you don’t like and a prime motivator for preventing foul behavior is to show it, and to show how foul that is. You SHOULD feel uncomfortable to see those sorts of things. And why avoid that? Why avoid discomfort? You can’t learn and be a human like that. Pain teaches you to avoid shit. It’s upsetting? Fantastic, now you know better how/why to not treat another human being. Without these lessons people get stupid fucking ideas in their heads that they’re supposed to be granted control over others because they want it, or that their partners are their property, or so on. and so forth. I know full fucking grown adults who can’t understand that racism is a thing and it totally happens and how that all works because they’ve never been forced to confront it or fully understand it. Or if not racism, homophobia or transphobia or ethnocentrism and sexism and so on. Everything gets turned into blanket statements and literalism and semantics. if they don’t personally experience it or are otherwise given the understanding of what it’s like to experience it, they simply don’t believe it and don’t give a fuck. No one wants to think critically, especially when it might mean they’re actually doing something bad and instead of seeing an opportunity for self improvement, they only think they’re being personally attacked and that it’s necessary for them to prove they’re perfect. Which is totally asinine. Of course people make mistakes, and the matter is whether or not they learn from it. Which takes us back to the top— without knowing what mistakes to avoid or how, you can’t hope not to commit them.
^THIS. ALLLLLL OF THIS!
I don’t even play Bioshock, but doesn’t this game take place around the 1920s? If that’s the case, the makers of this game have every right to, oh I dunno, fucking make a period piece and be as historically accurate as possible.
Everyone who’s complaining about the game’s racism is stupid and really needs to attend a history class.
This games takes place in 1913, BEFORE the first Bioshock was taken place.
And during pre 1920’s there was huge racism against Irishmen, Chinese men, and African Americans.
This game is probably one of the most accurately correct game in terms of history. Heck they even talked about the Pinkerton and how a lot of people were anti-union.
If you are turned off by the racism in this game, then that’s fine. This era wasn’t the best. But the fact that there is this extreme dislike towards this game because of the accurate history in this game then you are all ignorant.
All of this. Couldn’t have said it better myself. I love it when any form of media takes the time to be accurate, and I mean ACCURATE, about everything. 1913? Yeah, um… those signs are going to be up there, and there’s going to be racism, and it’s going to be uncomfortable to look at. And you know what? It’s supposed to be uncomfortable. That was a horrible period in history, and kudos to this game for showing it. And kudos to this game for making you react to it. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t want more accurate portrayals then bash them for being, well, accurate. You can’t say, “Ugh I wish they’d stop sugarcoating it,” then getting upset when they, you know, stop sugarcoating it.
I remember this coming up in L.A. Noire, which was 1940s, and there’s a scene where the “n” word is used if I remember right, and you just stand there and listen as this guy pretty much treats this black guy like shit. And you stand there and you listen. Because, you know what, it sucks but it’s 1940. I don’t expect to see white people and black people being best friends back then. Not at all. And if they were I’d call bullshit on it. Bioshock is years before that. You’re going to see hangings, and racism, and hatred, and bad things. It’s 1913. That’s what happened. It sucks, but that’s what happened. The ACTION ITSELF was unnecessary, there was no reason at all to be so hateful towards a group of people. But, guess what? Once upon a time, people did that. It’s a part of our history, and that’s what’s in the game.
Stop thinking that a social topic is in the game just for shock factor, or to prove a point. It’s not always about that. It’s a part of our history, whether you want to deal with it or not. Why are those signs up there? Because it’s 1913 and signs like that existed in 1913.
