Clundercake

AMY LEE READ MY IMMORTAL AND LOVED IT IM YELLING

- Shades of white in Europe range from ‘freshly fallen snow’ to ‘I am frequently mistaken as being from the Middle East’

- White European is a thing. When you fill out a form, under ethnicity, there are several options for white; white British, white European, white other. Because people make that distinction

- There are Europeans who don’t class their ethnicity as their skin colour, but as their nationality. I have family who don’t think of themselves as white, they just think of themselves as Italian and don’t really give much thought to their skin colour

- People here in Britain always question if darker skinned white Europeans are ‘actually white’. I get it a lot myself. My response is always ‘well I’m not anything else, so obviously I must be’

- Despite being white, a lot of Europeans from Italy, Greece, Spain etc, don’t feel white in the traditional sense. We’re not white like white British people. We’re not white like white Americans. We’re our own white. White British is one thing. White Italian is another thing. White Greek is another, etc

- Which is why we have this notion here in Europe of ‘nationality over race’. Being white isn’t as important as where you’re from

- So this really only becomes an issue if you’re an immigrant

- So being white in Europe doesn’t save you from racial discrimination, because sure, you’re technically white, but you’re not white white. Not the right white

- Here in England, Europeans with really blatantly foreign names, such as myself, find it more difficult to get job interviews, because they take one look at our name and don’t bother reading the rest of the CV. A guy I know was actually told by his boss to reduce the pile of CVs he had by ‘chucking away any with a name you can’t fucking pronounce’

- And then even when you do get an interview, half the time you walk into the joint several shades darker than everyone else and feel like you’ve walked into the ‘Swedish supermodel’ clubhouse and you just know you’re not getting hired

(That’s Mila Kunis. She was born in the Ukraine.)

(Sebastian Stan. From Constanta, Romania.)

(Mia Wasikowska, from Poland)

(Nina Dobrev, who was born in Bulgaria.)

They are white! Just because they are white, it doesn’t mean people from their countries cannot face horrible discrimination, and it doesn’t mean that they can’t be constantly told that they don’t work as hard as people from Western Europe, and that they don’t deserve basic human rights.

But as somebody who has lived in England and the US, I can vouch for all of this. The race issues in Europe and the race issues in the US are not the same.

For the last few years, there has been an awful backlash against immigrants from Poland, with some of the same language used that Americans use about “Mexicans” (By which, half the time, they mean anyone from south of the US/Mexico border).

It’s worth understanding that

1. Racism and discrimination are everywhere.

I was yelled at in the street because a lady thought I was Polish. People have pushed their chairs into my parents and insulted them in a restaurant because they were recognised as Germans.

Less than 100 years ago we were considered mongoloid (and while it’s not entirely wrong, though Uralic or North-West Asian and Caucasian mix would be lot more accurate), and were oppressed by another nation (Russia) that tried to enforce cultural and linguistic genocide on us, and before that we were oppressed and practically enslaved by Sweden, not all that differently as in any other colonized nation–which we were for 800 years.

I’d like to point out that also italian people have faced discrimination from other european countries. We were, and sadly often still are, always seen as part of the mafia and therefore dangerous, or inferior and poor (y’all can find signs saying pretty nasty stuff online, and i’m leaving this here even tho it’s in Italian), i’ve heard a lady telling his son to stay away from me and my family because we were speaking italian and so we could do “bad things” to him and there were times when in shops we were made feel not welcome because we are italian…..and guess what my family is white.

“What are you talking about?” say my sister and I. ‘There are two Italian guys RIGHT THERE.” 

“OMG you cannot say Italian people are not white,” he says.

“Yes we fucking can,” says the Italian friend watching the show with us, deeply offended. 

And then we had to pause it and a lot of complex explanations ensued. (Including the fact that Greek and Italian people generally aren’t considered White in Australia and in fact many a Nonna will smack you if you suggest otherwise.)

Basically, ‘white’ is a category upon which no two cultures/countries can agree on the definition, they all think they have the only possible definition, and it usually boils down to Preferred Flavours of Bigotry.

And to add on with skin color and how it’s not inherently tied to race in Europe.

I’m Swedish, and in Sweden we basically have the ~pale can’t get a tan to save their life~ swede, which I am, and the ~is pale in winter but with and hour of sun will be the share of Rihanna~ Swede, which my cousins on my dad’s side are. There is no discrimination towards any of these groups despite shade differences because we’re all considered “ethnically Swedish”. As stated above, ethnicity plays a larger role in Europe than race. In Sweden it’s even taboo to mention race and all racial discussions are based on the concept of ethnicity instead (which is kinda bad because we need to discuss race as well).

Do you design a lot of characters living in not-modern eras and you’re tired of combing through google for the perfect outfit references? Well I got good news for you kiddo, this website has you covered! Originally @modmad made a post about it, but her link stopped working and I managed to fix it, so here’s a new post. Basically, this is a costume rental website for plays and stage shows and what not, they have outfits for several different decades from medieval to the 1980s. LOOK AT THIS SELECTION:

OPEN ANY CATEGORY AND OH LORDY–

touch starved

my parents never told me they are proud of me

i love Stuff

im so fucken tired please god just let me rest for 5 minutes

Young gents (and wlw and nb folks interested in ladies), if your girlfriend or prospective girlfriend presents you a list like this (especially in writing), you crumple that shit up, drop it at her feet, remind her that you are not property, and walk away.

Do not throw something like this out

Keep it. Hide it somewhere safe that you’ll find it again - like where you keep your tax receipts, for example. Keep it in a plastic bag and touch the actual paper as little as possible to preserve fingerprints. Maybe write the date they gave it to you on the bag itself.