newwavefeminism:

andreaisace:

stfuracists:

First lady wows at State Dinner in a vibrant Alexander McQueen gown

Check out some of the comments…

Wow. Just. Wow. This is disgusting. 

“You go girl, get what you can off of whitey cuz after your old man ruins this country you can always sell crack like the rest of your beloved relatives”

I mean, seriously? People actually think these things. And I bet most of these people don’t dare utter a word aloud, they only say these horrible things when they can hide behind their computer screen. Fuck that noise, man.

I’m just going to… leave this here

This is exactly what is problematic with the racialization of gender. All these insults thrown at the first lady are not only based on the fact that she’s black, not just because she’s a women - but in the fact that somehow being a women of color she’s so much less valuable as a human being.

CeCe McDonald--Young Black Transgender Woman--to be Housed in Male Prison →

newwavefeminism:

This entire scenario has just been horrific. From start to finish. (and its NOT isolated)

 CeCe McDonald, the young black transgender woman who accepted a plea deal and pled guilty to second-degree manslaughter last month will be incarcerated by the state of Minnesota as a male. McDonald was arrested after she stabbed a white male who was part of a group of that physically and verbally attacked her with transgender and racial slurs.

Death Sentence? The Public Perception of Transgender Women of Color →

fuckyeahfeminists:

According to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, an overwhelming majority of the transgender woman murdered last year were racial minorities. The overall murder rate of LGBT people rose 11 percent.

The coalition tracked the murders by monitoring reports from news outlets, which often err in properly identifying the desired gender marker of victims. The prevalence of such crimes can go unnoticed, if media professionals aren’t sympathetic to the idea that, in death, a transgender woman doesn’t switch back to male.

It’s worth noting that the issues faced by the transgender community are far too complex to definitively state that transgender women of color are murdered because of their race and gender expression. Until recently, the federal government did not track the sexuality or gender identity of hate crime victims. Unless her murder is classified a hate crime, it’s entirely possible that law enforcement agencies and media outlets will fail to acknowledge the gender expression of a transgender woman, whether she be the criminal or the victim.

Click the title for the whole article.

a-blobfish:

TRIGGER WARNING rape, gang rape, cops doing shitty things, racism

Recy Taylor’s Brother: Rape Apology to Give ‘Closure’

Recy Taylor hadn’t asked for much. More than six decades after she was raped by six white men in her hometown of Abbeville, Alabama – a horrific crime that the sheriff’s department covered up, never to speak of again – she wasn’t interested in reopening the case or pressing charges. Taylor, now 91 years old, just thought an apology was in order.

full article in the click through - interesting/depressing/slightly hopeful

(via reali-teaparty)

Kinsey Hope Can't Focus For Shit: Solidarity in Feminism Or How White Feminists Fail Intersectionality....Again →

karnythia:

So I’m sure I’m being divisive now or something, but with all this talk of solidarity from white feminists where exactly are the marches & letter campaigns backing up women who are indigenous & facing higher rates of sexual assault? Where are the big well funded campaigns…

(via fuckyeahwomenprotesting2)

GROSS: Runner Michael Johnson says Black Olympians Dominate Because They’re Descendants of Slaves →

fuckyeahfeminists:

umm, no. that’s some racist shit that is a complete myth. WHy?

John Thomas Didymus, a journalist based in Nigeria, also points out that years earlier an African-American social scientists argued the theory was offensive because it encourages ‘black brawn vs. white brains’ stereotyping. “Most sociologists think that Americans and Caribbeans of West African descent excel in sports because circumstances of economic, social and cultural disadvantage predisposes them to take up sport as the most accessible avenue to self-fulfillment,” Didymus wrote on Digitaljournal.com.

Black American sociologist Harry Edwards debunked the notion of the “black superior athletic gene” in 1971: “The myth of the black male’s racially determined, inherent physical and athletic superiority over the white male, rivals the myth of black sexual superiority in antiquity.”

“The argument about the existence of an ‘athletic gene’ has a long sordid history. It is grounded in white supremacist ideology rather than science and fact,” David Leonard, professor of Ethnic Studies at Washington State University and author of the recently published “After Artest: The NBA and the Assault on Blackness,” told Colorlines.com.

So there you have it. It’s along the same lines as the black jezebel myth. There are myths and stereotypes that die hard in this country. Visit Colorlines to learn more about this documentary that is based on this whole myth and why it’s a crock of shit.

newwavefeminism:

thiscuntsays:

sparkamovement:

shelbyknox:

Emma Stydahar, 17, and Carina Cruz, 16, both SPARK Movement activists, were on CNN this morning to discuss their campaign to get Teen Vogue to promise to show real beauty in their pages. Carina: “As a young woman of color who has had weight issues, I’ve never seen myself represented; it’s always white and skinny.” To sign their petition, go to www.change.org/teenvogue

Our girls!!!! <3

Signed.

That’s pretty awesome.

A thoughtful response to Andy Griffith's death →

fuckyeahfeminists:

“Black and White in Mayberry”

“They didn’t come across as being racist,” my dad said.

They didn’t give themselves the opportunity. Only one black actor—Rockne Tarkington—ever had a speaking role on “The Andy Griffith Show.” The story went like this: Opie was starting piano lessons. Aunt Bee was into it, but Andy wasn’t too keen. Opie then met the cool new football coach who was a black ex-NFL player. Opie suddenly found himself conflicted! Football or piano? My dad remembered this storyline clearly. (“I didn’t miss too many episodes, Shani-o.”)

Our conversation slipped into reminiscences of all the all-white shows we have known, and whether we are better off with showrunners pretending that people of color didn’t exist. “Bonanza” and “Gunsmoke”—other much-loved staples of that era in our household—would occasionally take a crack at edgier storylines involving race or gender. At best they were ham-fisted; at worst, downright racist.

All-white can sometimes be all right: “The Andy Griffith Show” didn’t have a chance to be particularly racist because it didn’t try for anything beyond sweet simplicity.

These are 50-year-old (or 100-year-old? 1,000-year old?) trade-offs. I must consider the whiteness of “Girls” and “Bunheads” and why Barney almost never sleeps with black women on “How I Met Your Mother” and why “Friends” was set in an impossibly white Manhattan and why the only black girl on “Buffy” was killed in season two and why Mercedes on “Glee” has to be so damn sassy and why Shonda Rhimes is the only showrunner regularly casting people of color in roles that aren’t explicitly People of Color. Or I must opt out altogether and hit up the black internet’s impressive collection of web series.

Personally, I never watched the Andy Griffith Show (when it came on Nickelodeon after Nick, Jr. was over I was overcome with boredom due to the black and white and refused to watch). But I still appreciated the mentions of how modern day mainstream television is still very much white.

Read the rest on The Awl.

stfuracists:

ishouldntbelaughing:

Family Photo

Comparing black folks to simians is racist. 

STFU, Racist.

stfuracists:

allaroundnerd:

After scanning the internet out of boredom, I came across this picture. I was horrified, but unfortunately, not surprised. Many people still think this way, and it will probably continue for a while, but to see such a concrete example still gets to me. If it isn’t apparent by my picture, I am an African American male. I personally believe that race shouldn’t play a factor in who you date, and choosing to only date a race, or exclude a certain race is extremely ignorant. Well, I don’t have many followers on Tumblr, so I decided to post this picture where it’s ignorance and racism would be seen for what it is, and this blog is the best place I know. 

Thanks for the submission (and for reading this blog!). I know I’ve seen this before, and I thought we’d posted it, but I can’t find it in the archives. I don’t want to give the racist church web traffic, so instead, here is a brief Wikipedia article about them and a page at the Southern Poverty Law Center about the organization.

“Othering” reports: How they’re not so positive, after all. →

newwavefeminism:

So I ran across this long ago, but never posted it. Read & tell me what you think - 

From BlackFemininity.Com:

Call me a pessimist, but at first glance the below report on self-esteem seems quite positive. And generally it would be, when an effort to examine how black women feel about their bodies is all-inclusive of our humanity in equal proportions to all other women in question. But are they truly positive, when the method for forecasting self-esteem puts other women’s context at the center of the model?

The report (from Allure magazine) says:

* African-American and Hispanic women are twice as likely as Caucasian women to report not wanting to change their body in any way.

* A third of African-American women think of themselves as the most attractive person in the room.

* African-American men are directionally more likely to embrace and aspire to curviness – they say they want curvier hips and a higher/rounder butt or a larger butt.

Such studies:

- never include or ask women how they feel about complexion, over things like wrinkles.

- never account for black hetero women’s self esteem as it relates to what they will sacrifice in relationships, and the standards and treatment they will accept.

- mentions findings on things such as anorexia, but not how self-esteem deducing  it may be for a male partner to claim his preference for you, not for the beauty of your eyes, smile, facial features, and your heart, but instead, for your nipples, butt, labia, or any other erogenous zone for his personal sexual fulfillment.

- never includes how women may feel about their natural hair texture.

- never begins to examine how women with “rounder” features may feel about their lips, cheekbones, nose shape or facial profile when in the mirror.

- fail to acknowledge that reports of insecurity are severely skewed if said women learned that discussing typical female insecurities is “self-hatred” (as punishment for not conforming to the myth of super-human). Such women would, of course, report more incidents of positivity overall to avoid stigma.

-etc.,

We relate to people (rather average people or celebrities) who discuss their imperfections, over those who view themselves as perfect and lacking any flaws. They are human, like us. In fact, the normal custom is to despise the people who do not and we consider them incapable of human emotions.

I cannot state enough that there are no statistical solutions for socialized problems. What are women, if they don’t have basic things like insecurities and sensitivity in common? We do. They just continuously go unreported.

I think the main value of this article is that is shows us how even the very methodology that goes into creating a study to uncover a greater truth is a product of, and only works to maintain and perpetuate existing systems of dominance and privilege

silentlydrawn:

slumbeauty:

codenamevii:

negacrow:

kyssthis16:

cariosity:

dreamsliesandbutterflies:

cupcakesdreams:

bhargette:

Exactly. Take that America.

wonder why this doesn’t have many notes.

LOVE THIS!!!

No, this really needs more notes.

Because, seriously.

yes, racism, exactly. but aso? damn I want some chocolate batter right now.

Bwaaa. Which one ya’ll?!

Yo. Nothing will ever beat this. Nothing. Ever. 

(via rebekahloves)

Uppity Negress: Vincent Chin 30 years later →

bankuei:

Vincent Chin 30 Years Later

On June 19, 1982, Vincent Chin was at his bachelor party at Fancy Pants, a strip club in suburbanDetroit. Two white out-of-work autoworkers, Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz, began trading insults at Chin from across the bar. “It’s because of you…

(via aragingquiet)

Uppity Negress: "The Plantation as a Civilizing Factor" →

bankuei:

- Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, published in Sewanee Review XXII, (July 1904)

(This was quoted in Angela Davis’ Women, Race and Class footnotes)

The conditions of our problem are as follows:

1. A century or two ago the negroes were savages in the wilds of Africa. 2. Those who were…

(via aragingquiet)

THE HOTTENTOT COMPLEX: THE SUBORDINATION OF BLACK FEMININITY →

newwavefeminism:

An essay i wrote for a class. one of my favorites… [click to read the whole thing]

excerpt: 

The black female experience is one of alienation. We live in society where woman are already loosely controlled by the patriarchy. As women, we are taught the importance of being feminine, ladylike and beautiful. Commercials inundate us with images of the ideal woman. Television and movies base their characters off tropes already existing in society. However, while these images make it very clear the characteristics expected of the “proper lady,” black women are taught to assess their own worth through a white standard of beauty. In terms of representation, black women are essentially invisible. Yet, while women everywhere try to live up to society’s standard of beauty, black women are constantly reminded that their naturally curly hair, dark skin and curvy bodies, make them naturally inferior.