First things first, I'm pretty mixed up racially, and grew up and lived in many different places in a mixture of communities. And I was definitely not privileged. The new trending hashtag growing up black/Asian/white/Muslim/etc is supposed to be an amusing trending hashtag for people to share the irony and common cultural things they did as a child. When you look into the individual hashtags for each group, there's a pretty big assortment of different things. While there is mild racist jokes in every single one, growingupwhite is literally just full of "non-white" people bashing on "white people". The additional hashtags under these posts are even more racists. When anyone stands up and says you know it's not right, doesn't matter your color, religion, or sexual preference, it's not okay to spread hatred-- this person is immediately attacked. They are told that "reverse racism doesn't exist". That "now you're crying and whining because someone said something awful about you when I lived with it my whole life". "Shut the fuck up and get out of here whitey/white devil". Those are actual things I read. Now, that in itself is racist. Reverse racism doesn't exist, you're right. Because reverse racism is in fact just regular old racism. No one is crying and whining, they're trying to point out the irony in the situation, that people who are banding together to feel better and fight against racism are in the end, spreading it themselves. That is almost the definition of being a hypocritic. If you dealt with it your whole life, or feel entitled because slavery happened, then you should know better than to participate in the same exact behavior. It's almost like bullying someone, because you were bullied. Or in many cases, because your grandmother was bullied, so now you must bully them generations later. That's asinine behavior. And the last statement is just plain and simple racist. It's not okay to continue to do this to people. It's great to have pride in your ethnicity. But it's not okay to tear someone else down for theirs. It's not okay for white people. It's not okay for black people. Or Asians, Indians, Pacific Islanders, and everyone else in between. We are never going to move on into a civilized culture if we can not stop the hate. Terrible things happened all across the world to many people, we will never forget. But it doesn't do any good to hate people and constantly repeat racism based on previous generations. This country is supposed to be founded on the judicial system of innocent until proven guilty. Just like don't judge a book by its cover. Everyone you see has a different outer shell, and until you've spoken to that person and gotten to know them, you no have right to judge them (except children and animal abusers: judge them. Judge them harshly). This country is based on freedom of speech, so you're free to say what you will. But understand that actions have consequences. Those consequences aren't threats, those consequences are the continual rebirth of racism. Racism that is taught to the youngest generation, who then passes it on. Racism causes pain in so many ways. It needs to stop. If we can't stop it in the regular world or change the minds of grandparents and parents-- then we can change OUR minds and we can stop teaching it to our children. Think about the future and not just about winning a petty argument. Make tumblr a safe place from the outside world don't bring hate here just to have it fester.
