-british

-american

-racist black woman stereotype

-racist black man stereotype

-transatlantic

-american 2

-the singular indian accent (from some exotic place called india idk)

-sir dave attenborg

-ppl who do spanish speak i guess..

-unitedstates

-some person who peacefully coexisted with white people (probablyh) and kissed columbus on the lips apparently (alleged and proven 100% true ) and said something about Eagles and Bears and thanksgaving

White privilege is the privilege to be fucked up because of your own life (e.g. parents, middle school bullies, terrible experiences...).

What has fucked me up beside my own life is:

- the weight of every hate crime. the constant worry about what do I have to do and who do I have to become to avoid that.

- the trauma that has transferred from generation to generation. the utter sadness that such horrible things happened in the past and the guilty relief that I feel that I was born now and not back then.

- having to deal with centuries old racism/ethnicism

PS. I use “white” as a blanket term here. I think this applies to any kind of majority-disenfranchised minority situation.

this term would be useful to describe systemic oppression and/or genocide enacted against white people by other white people as well as against poc by other poc. i don't like the 'sliding scale' model of racism that (white) ethnic minorities are sometimes graciously allowed to access and sometimes arbitrarily denied; i don't think racism is that nuanced, i'm tired of reading catty arguments between europeans and americans accusing each other of not knowing what it is. the contention is because they are describing fundamentally different things.

to put it simply, if the oppression is race-based, it's racism. if oppression is ethnic minority-based, including the situational attempt to deny that said ethnic minority belongs to a specific race whenever it is convenient to the oppressor, it's ethnicism.

some groups/individuals face both. some only face one or the other. it's about clarity of language and giving people the tools to describe their experiences.

A lot of Americans don’t understand what ethnicism is; so, I’m gonna put it in these terms.

A well-known American actor is allowed to try a Welsh accent for an upcoming movie, and he is praised for it.

A well-known Welsh actor who has been in many movies and tv shows has to cover up his Welsh accent with a British one.

Goin in a little feelings rant real quick. The purpose of this post is to help find others like myself. While I realize finding someone with my exact bg is almost impossible I’m just trying to get some advice or kinship from other mixed persons. My mother is Quechua Bolivian and Dominican. My father is Italian, and Jewish (Romanian and Polish). I never start a new job without spending the first week sifting through the “what are you?” questions. I never can say “I’m Native American.” without someone in the room telling me South Americans don’t count as Native American. My white family who say “race doesn’t matter” will never stop making “silly offhand” offensive and mildly racist jokes. These things should sound incredibly familiar to all other mixed people and I know we all have literally hundreds of stories to tell. How do you handle it? How do you feel accepted? How to you become an ally to others?

This year has brought a lot of anger into many of our lives with the current political climate and news. I’ve been thinking so much about all the families at the border even today who are being detained. Contrary to the public eye, there are several indigenous families who don’t speak Spanish and are stuck in detention centers. Who is giving them a voice? Who is assisting with letting them know why they’re being detained and how are they even getting placed into detention without being able to communicate? Does anyone even care? Has anyone else had moments from this past year effect them and their feelings on their identity?

Racism: Racism can be defined simply as any policy, belief, attitude, action or inaction, which subordinates individuals or groups based on their race. What this definition leaves out, however, is the specific historical formation of racism as an institution and an ideology over the last several hundred years. Taking into consideration the social and historical perspective, Paula Rothenberg offers this more pointed—and useful--definition of racism:

"Racism involves the subordination of people of color by white people. While individual persons of color may well discriminate against a white person or another person of color because of their race, this does not qualify as racism according to our definition because that person of color cannot depend upon all the institutions of society to enforce or extend his or her personal dislike. Nor can he or she call upon the force of history to reflect and enforce that prejudice. . . . History provides us with a long record of white people holding and using power and privilege over people of color to subordinate them, not the reverse." (Paula Rothenberg. Defining Racism and Sexism)

Source: https://www.pcc.edu/resources/illumination/documents/race-and-racism-curriculum.pdf

Note: Paula Rothenberg is white. I can dig up the same definition from black and brown peoples, but I think it has less value to white people who say that this definition is “racist” and try to redefine what racism is. I should note that for some white minorities that bought into the “white”ness later in history, this can go either way, depending on when you’re talking in history. (For example Italians have their “white” card as a white minority, but were once classed as “black” and thus fought with black people for civil rights--something they often don’t cover in history class.)

I wanted share my experiences because most people don’t know how people like me feel. The reason is we don’t hear much about these stories. How are people supposed to know what we go through if we don’t tell them? Anyways, here is my story.

I find out that I was less than others when I was ten years old. I was super into politics back then (even though my family was not). My grandmother’s favorite childhood story of mine is when a party I didn’t like won the elections that year, I cried all night long and no one could console me. (This party was later banned from politics by an international human rights court.) After that election, I decided that I was going to start my own party when I grow up and become the prime minister. I had already started working on a list of things to change/improve in my country. That is until my parents sat me down and told me that I could never become the prime minister because of my ethnicity. 

My initial reaction phase was to be the best citizen I could be. I was going to be such an ideal citizen that everyone was going to be in awe. I started to distance myself from our ethnicity’s religion and our ethnicities social circle. And I realize how foolish this stuff was but I was ten... I loved my country and I thought if people saw that, they would love me. 

The racism/ethnicism in my country is usually not in your face, especially for children. I had a good couple of years. Everything was fine. I found out how much hatred and anger the majority in my country had towards my ethnicity when I was 12. In history class, I classmate got up and started yelling at me and calling me names because of my ethnicity. I was in such a shock that I did not know what to do so I sat there and took it. The other students did not care enough to stop him. Most telling for me was that the teacher did not care enough to stop him. 

My second reaction phase. After that day, I decided that I was not going to take this. I did not want to be somewhere I was not wanted. I decided that I was going to work REALLY hard, become super smart and some first world country was going to invite me to move there because I was so smart and studious. That will show my country, I thought. And I followed through. I got into the best high school in the country (our high schools have an official ranking). I learnt English REALLY well. I took AP courses in high school and learned multiple programming languages. I got into an university in a first world country where I was given 4 awards for various academic reasons. I went on to get two Master’s degrees.

I had to take a year of from studying and working for health reasons two years ago. That was the first time in my life I stopped to look at my life. I also joined Tumblr. And I love this site with the amazing humor and beautiful art and the fandoms. But the thing that spoke to me most was the fact that there were so many people out feeling less than others for various reasons. I wish I had the privilege to hear about other people’s struggles when I was younger. Tumblr changed my life. After a lot of introspection, I realized some things.

I realized that I still feel less than others. Maybe even more so now. I feel like I am not full human being. I am less than here. I am less than in other countries as well because I am from a third world country and I have a slight accent. This is a disgusting feeling. 

I realized that I am angry at my family. I would never bring a child into these circumstances and I am mad at my parents for doing just that. I am mad at them for condemning me to be less than a human being.

I realized that I am done with all discrimination and inequality. I am angry at my country for making me feel less than human. I am angry at the world for making others feel the same. In real life, I never shut up about human rights now. 

I kind of glossed over the discrimination I had to face over the years. Mostly because I am not writing a novel here. The biggest issue living in my country was that knowing that I was not wanted even if I was usually tolerated. That is not nice feeling to have in a place where one considers home. And even if it was not every single day, I did face some explicit discrimination. The ones that really got to me were:

My ethnicity making it difficult for me to date. Either because people do not want to date someone with my ethnicity (which I have been told to my face) or because their families did not want them to date someone with my ethnicity (which I have been told to my face).

When I was told that all my ethnicity should get assassinated. A famous person from my ethnicity was assassinated and a person my dad’s age told me that he deserved it, we all deserve a similar end and in fact we should all get assassinated.

Watching a government mandated video in a high school class which claimed that my ethnicity and two other minorities in our country were the biggest terrorist problem our country was facing. The video went on to show clips and pictures of our country’s soldiers dying. 

We have a saying here. “Even if you put on a gold saddle on a donkey, it is still a donkey.” I feel all my degrees and my accomplishments can’t make me a real human being. The ironic part is I have specialized to help people of my country. Like I can’t even really work anywhere else with my specialty. Why did I do that? I now realize that I still wanted to prove how much I loved my country. And I do. These are my people. They are the only people in the world I get 100%. I share their culture. They are my childhood. No one else can know my childhood movies, songs and even snacks like they can. To know that my people will never accept me breaks my heart. To know that I will never truly feel home anywhere in this world sets the crumbs of my heart on fire.