🌿🪵Formerly Apollosdragonson 🪵🌿

This is a blanket post because I am talking about fat white people, a beautiful group irregardless who taught me alot about self love and autonomy but that is why I am reminding you what I reminded my dear friends growing up.

You are a real minority but you are white first. And it shows in your values from how you came up. It shows in critical lack of class solidarity. It shows in the privilege to not have to unlearn baseline insecurity, harassment behaviors, racism and misogyny.

This is no chastisement, just a reminder. If people like you taught me things, its my turn. The hillbillies I grew up with taught me that they were white first and fought for and with me because of that truth of privilege.

This is the class expectation I expect from black people and white people who follow me. One side is handling these expectations better and it hurts all of our growth.

Jesus screamed “JESUS CHRIST YOU STABBED ME”.

Since that Jesus had to be taken down due to a bad case of stab-itis, the backup Jesus came in, but he weighed significantly less than the original Jesus- which would have been fine, except that at the end the cross was supposed to ascend upwards with Jesus on it, and the weights hadn’t been adjusted.

my first year doing this, our industry contacts were 1 actor, 1 casting director, and 1 producer to get different aspects of the business, and they all gave us amazing advice and told fantastic stories. the actor in question was Zazu on Broadway’s The Lion King for several years, and told the best story by far.

in The Lion King, there are only two pieces of pre-recorded noise in the whole show. one, when Pumbaa does a MASSIVE fart while fighting the hyenas, and the other being Mufasa saying REMEMBERRRRRR as Simba climbs Pride Rock. the actor told us while struggling not to laugh that, during one night’s performance, someone forgot to flip the tape of these pre-recorded noises.

so, at the end of the show, the great climax where Simba finally accepts his place in the Circle of Life, the heavens parted and-

PFFFFFFFFFRRRRRBTFTBTBFTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

everyone froze. and then all ran off stage positively HOWLING with laughter.

Originally, the actors were going to stroll on stage with our Lefou hauling in the really neat (and real!) taxidermied deer head that we had found in a local thrift store. Now, two days before opening night, our director wants Lefou to run in from off stage and catch a stuffed duck that Gaston has just shot. This, of course, requires two things to work properly as a scene: a gunshot noise, and a stuffed duck.

The gunshot noise, we had covered. Blue-collar, redneck school? Guns a plenty to record. The stuffed duck? Harder than you might have thought to obtain.

Three hunting stores, two taxidermists, and one Pet Supply Store ™, I’d finally found a semi-realistic pheasant squeaky toy. What follows is an account of the ways this dog toy managed to be the nightmare prop of the six show run.

Opening Night: The stagehand, who was supposed to drop the bird from the ceiling catwalk, missed his cue and didn’t drop the it. Lefou’s actor rolls with it and does an excellent job of looking around foolishly before getting cuffed upside the head by Gaston. The stagehand then drops the bird squarely on Gaston’s head. Cue laughter.

Saturday Matinee: Different stagehand throws the bird instead of dropping it and beans Lefou directly in the face with the prop. Lefou falls over. Cue laughter.

Saturday Night: Bird is missing during curtain call. Director hauls the deer head down from it’s place on the tavern wall and tells Gaston and Lefou to revert to the old blocking i.e. no gunshot, no bird, just walk in with trophy. During Gaston and Lefou’s conversation, gun shot sound goes off and a stagehand throws the bird onto the stage…from the wrong side of the stage. Lefou and Gaston stare at it in awkward silence for a solid thirty seconds before Lefou makes off-script, subtle joke about Gaston’s gun going off late instead of early. Cue adults in the audience laughing.

Sunday Matinee: Director begs the stagehands to get the cue right at least once. Gunshot and bird prop go off without a hitch. Lefou accidentally catches the prop when it falls from the catwalk. He’s so startled that he caught it that Gaston runs right in to him. They drop both the gun and the bird props, and grab the wrong prop in their scramble. Gaston spends the rest of the scene gesturing dramatically with a stuffed pheasant, instead of a gun.

Sunday Night:  Director is fed up with bird prop, decides that Lefou should just carry bird prop in after gunshot happens off stage. Lefou accidentally squeezes the prop during the intro conversation, startling both actors into silence with the squeaky toy noise - apparently, neither of them realized it was a dog toy.

It was awesome because when people saw the play and didn’t know the girls were identical twins, it literally looked like it was one actor doing multiple, uber fast costume changes.

One of our first performances was for our peers and it was a big school so lots of people didn’t know the twins. This - for some reason - was also the performance they chose to record.

Listening to the confusion of the audience during the playback was fantastic and completely topped by the moment Viola walked off stage left just as Sebastian walked on stage right and someone right beside the camera goes “OH WHAT THE FUCK” so loudly it drowned out everything else.

It’s like our third show and everything has been going surprisingly well. Hook and Smee climb to the top of the “tree trunk”, supposedly looking for Peter and not knowing they’re standing above his hiding spot the whole time.

Turns out someone didn’t close the trapdoor properly, because the second Hook steps on it, he plunges through the thing. He’s able to catch himself, but he’s got his ass and one leg dangling through this hole where it’s like a ten foot drop to the ground. All of us stage crew are literally two feet away from him offstage, just gaping at him because???? Y'all this fall looked BAD. Looked like my dude did the splits in mid air. The whiplash caused his fucking wig to come off. The audience is dead silent, all of us backstage are dead silent, the director is like already looking up how to treat a broken groin.

WILL YOU NOT ANSWER ME?

The conversation of privilege, and who has access to privilege, is one of the conversations that tumblr seems to be the worst at having, so let's talk it through!

A lot of people have the misconception that privilege works like an on/off switch. Either you 100% have it, or you don't.

But privilege works less like a switch, and more like a mixing board.

(ID: a mixing board with many toggles, sliders, and dials)

Privileges interact with each other in different ways, and different privileged people may have more or less access to those privileges if they face oppression in other ways.

A white man and a Native american man may both benefit from male privilege, but a Native american man does not have the same access to male privilege that a white man does. A gay man does not have the same access to male privilege that a straight man does.

A disabled white person does not have the same access to white privilege that an able white person does. A white transgender person does not have the same access to white privilege that a white cisgender person does.

A cisgender Black woman does not have the same access to cisgender privilege that a white cisgender woman has.

While a post op masc presenting trans man with 10 years on testosterone may benefit from male privilege a closeted, fem presenting transgender man does not have that same access.

Privilege does not exist in a vacuum. Misogyny, racism, transphobia etc are not just individual acts, they are SYSTEMS of oppression, and those systems intersect with each other.

Intersectionality was coined by Black american activist and author Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 to describe the relationship between anti-Black racism and misogyny and the way that intersection impacts Black women. Feminist scholar Moya Bailey would later coin the word misogynoir to describe this specific intersection in 2008. Transmisogyny, coined by white american feminist author Julia Serano in 2007, is another example of one of these crucial intersections, and describes the deadly intersection of misogyny and transphobia that transfeminine people face.

Tumblr gets so hyperfocused on individual forms of oppression that we forget to consider intersectionality, and the way that our individual experiences of oppression and privilege interact. This is not serving any of us. It's on each and every one of us to learn about our privileges and find a way to use them for the common good.

Some forms of privilege, like white privilege or class/wealth privilege are near universal, and can override some forms of oppression. Consider how often white wealthy autistic men have their bad behaviour excused and explained away, in a way that would not be done for a poor, racialized autistic woman. Looking at you, Elon!

In the americas wealth and whiteness are privileged above all else. If you're a white marginalized person, you need to be aware of the ways that your white privilege lifts you above the racialized members of your community.

I'm First Nations, I experience oppression and racism based on my Indigenous background. I'm also light skinned, and I have a white mother. Even though I'm not (fully) white, I have more access to white privilege than visibly First Nations people because of my partial white ancestry, and my mother's white privilege. When I was young we were very poor and often utilized the local food bank. The resources were limited, and sometimes people were turned away due to low supply. If there's not enough to go around, who do you think is more likely to be prioritized: a brown Native mother with Native kids, or a white mother with Native kids? I materially benefited from HER white privilege.

Privilege is also not static. It may change as a person's circumstances or identity change. As a child I was darker skinned than I am now. As I aged, spent less time outdoors, and became lighter skinned, I gained more access to white privilege. I also used to need mobility aids 24/7, as my health has improved and I gained more mobility I also gained more access to the privilege that able bodied people have.

My being a light skinned Native with partial white ancestry means that non-Native people are more likely to listen to me than they are darker skinned Natives. This gives me an opportunity to share information about my people and our history that other natives may not get. That's privilege.

Your homework is to think on your specific intersections of privilege, (and we ALL have some kind of privilege) and consider the ways that you can use those privileges to lift up less privileged members of your community.

Thanks for reading.

It honestly feels on a similar level to how people will post about their autistic kids and make it all about them, but will always say negative shit like “autism has ruined our lives!” “autism has taken my child!” etc. etc. like you’re still fully dehumanising these people and making it about their role in your life. Your autistic kid isn’t there to make you feel good about yourself for putting up with them and your kid with Down’s Syndrome isn’t there to always provide you with joy and happiness. They’re a fucking person?? They’re not always going to be fucking happy, and you need to start treating them like their feelings aren’t so basic and black and white compared to yours. As if they’re a fucking dog.