#whiteonslaught rambles

“What’s something that you’ll get a lot of hate for if you said it out loud?” I’m going to be subtweeting a very specific person when I say this but I’m going to forward it to you all too. If you feel uncomfortable from what I’m saying, I am definitely talking about you. I’ve seen this several times with this specific person with the added insult of a record of broken promises to be better, as well as the same thing over the past few years from other people, so I am pissed enough to speak out. Obviously, this is just my opinion, disagreements are going to happen, I’m not forcing anyone to do anything, just asking you to read if you want. If a person, or more relevantly, group of people needs help, and you retweet, repost, share, post to your story, spread in any way that you can their cries for help like infographics, GoFundMe’s, links to online wallets, emergency commissions, news updates and all that; if you donate to such things and spread them around; push people to do the same; if you do donation commissions and give the money attained from that to them; bring it up in conversations with them and others every now and then; but you don’t emotionally help your everyday member of that group or that person, especially if they are your FRIEND, YOU ARE A FAKE ALLY. I do not care if you do everything else. If you don’t do that one thing, you’re a fake ally. And doing everything else doesn’t make you a good person either, if that is how you judge yourself and others. And if you're uncomfortable, then leave now. Doing everything else and not that is literally no different than 1 like for water for Africa, those old pics that would ask for likes during early facebook days, with the added insult of a trending event/group of people with it and resurging every now and then whenever something horrible happens, and they’re always seen first. You just click on those things to reassure people that you’re not THAT kind of an insensitive asshole, but then you just feel great about yourself that you added to that number even though you have only done the bare minimum, because you ultimately don’t want to get TOO involved in something that makes you uncomfortable, and give yourself a great pat on the back for all the hard work you’ve done just pressing that button. You obviously don’t care about this issue enough to throw your comfort zone aside, even for just a second. We don’t have that choice to not see it like you do, and we feel a lot more than just “uncomfortable”. For WAY longer. Doing those things without emotionally supporting the actual people just separates yourself from the problem in a convenient way. Passing thoughts and prayers and especially clicks on posts aren’t going to help anyone but a completely detached algorithm. You do not get credit for doing the bare minimum and expect the same rewards as passionate, achieving activists. I’m not just talking about #StopAAPIHate just because it’s trending right now, this applies to literally every hashtag that is the only way of a group of people’s cries for help that generates some kind of attention to everyone else that people care about. I’ve seen it be a pattern for enough time now. I’ve seen stories of people who would use #BlackLivesMatter, or the name of any black person who died, as a way to spread it by their banner or profile picture or even turn it into a meme that pushes people to sign their latest petitions, but then completely disrespect actual black people or don’t do anything else for their causes. The only reason you would ever do this is because you care about other people’s approval of you, not actual POC, and you only ever see them as a trend or a platform to be trendy. As a POC myself, we are more than just a fucking hashtag on twitter. We’re more than just a label to reassure people that you’re not a bully. We’re people. But I guess that’s too hard to understand for those fake allies, all they ever see is something to click on, and they’ll get the same credit as those genuine allies without having to work. Or be UNCOMFORTABLE, God forbid you have to step outside of the comfortable world you think you live in. Now for donating money. I get that monetary support isn’t something that everyone can afford to do. I’m not forcing or expecting everyone to do that or not do that. If you can’t, then I recommend spreading donation posts, for the hope for it to come by someone who can and will. You can then still be a vehicle for help if you cannot provide it yourself. But I know that everyone is capable of being completely fake when it comes to donations when they have that kind of money to spare. You can totally just dump $100 or so into a GoFundMe, and never interact with anything related to that group of people ever again and live a completely separate life, with that same convenient separation, but with a receipt this time so that if it’s brought up again, that’s all you have to show to say to them to not worry, you did something, you’re not THAT kind of fake asshole because your wallet is involved this time. It’s what youtubers do when they have to make a YouTube apology just so everyone can stop hating on them for a little while. Anyone can do that. I’m not assuming the worst in everyone, I’m saying you don’t need a platform to be an asshole. Money doesn’t make you better or worse than anyone else, it just shows that you’re more financially well off to be able to donate and that’s something that we can appreciate, but it’s not pure sentiment. Money isn’t feelings. It’s just money. It doesn’t tell us anything about your morals. It doesn’t care how you obtained it and it doesn’t care where you spend it. Donating from your heart and donating from your wallet are two very different things, but it’s not like we can tell from here, so we can’t give you credit for that, especially if those donations are also in the complete public eye. That kind of difference is only discernable to us long after, and even then, that requires some detective work and pattern searching with other donations you have made in the past, if any. Sometimes we don’t even have that time to see if that genuine empathy would come about or not. Whether or not you have a heart in that donation or not, it’s not like we can read your mind as you press confirm. The money doesn’t tell us your feelings, morals, or your heart. Only you can. And you have to WORK to tell us that. You can be appreciated for giving a monetary donation, but that appreciation is toward the money and not at you as a person, and if it is, it’s not towards the real you, it’s only towards you at that time and who knows if that’s gonna change within a minute, or was superficial the entire time, or if it’s the real ally we all knew we needed. We wouldn’t know, all we see is a name and a money amount. Those real allies take time to come out and solidify themselves within themselves and within others, but it’s not as soon as their money disappears. You don’t get credit as a person and your morals when it was the money and temporary self at that time that ultimately helped them. Just because you were behind that money doesn’t mean that the morals associated with you are in that money, and who knows if you were the same person as you made that donation a week ago. Do you know exactly where the dollar bills you have right now have gone through? How many inhumane multi million dollar corporations, or funding something harmful? If you can separate yourself from that, then the money you’re giving can easily be separated from you in both morals and in bank accounts. That’s what you’re choosing to give away as well when you make a donation. If you’re completely fine with that, then donate if you still want to. Just know that by doing that, it doesn’t make you special. In the end, the only thing received is money, not thoughts. That money is completely useless if it’s not being spent towards that needed relief, after all. You can also totally give out of obligation or social pressure instead of believing in the cause or caring about the person affected. That’s not being a real ally either. That’s hopping on a bandwagon because that attracts you more than what the cause is, because the value of human life doesn’t line up with your own. You would only care about this BECAUSE it’s trending, not because it has ever gotten to your emotions, morals, or anything you care about. Giving a donation or not doesn’t tell anyone anything about you, other than how relatively well off you are in terms of money and time, and that’s not relevant to what’s being asked. Donations can have so many motives behind it, and you are not free of those motives just because we can’t see it immediately, and those motives are completely lost once that money is received and eventually used. Money can be helpful in terms of alleviating the situation, but ultimately, it’s not help in placing you on a moral scale whether it’s others judging your character or just judging yourself. And there’s also the risk of donating to a complete scam, and again, money doesn’t care where it’s going to or where it’s coming from, because it’s just money. Not everything that is asking for donations is a scam, but because of this possibility, what you claim to be your one act of good will from your heart in the form of monetary support can easily be debunked and ultimately be used against you whether you were aware of this being a scam before then or not, because the internet is very reactive more than anything else. And if you are donating from your heart and you end up donating to a scam, that’s just even more emotional damage to you as well as the cause, an even worse situation. So again, monetary support isn’t any better than what I determine to be the one defining factor of being a good ally. It’s just a different kind of support that can be useful but it’s not with any heart in it. And because most of those people asking for donations would say that even a little bit helps, the amount of money you’re donating doesn’t give you more credit than others, it just puts you higher on the highest donations list that is made by another detached algorithm, which is ultimately meaningless except for telling whoever clicks on that list how much money you were willing to spare to them, and not what you were thinking when you did it. To be a real ally, that’s a constant effort more than just money or spreading posts. It’s something that can’t ever be measured or manipulated by any algorithm. And I know that the majority of “allies” die out as soon as it’s not trending anymore. It’s happened enough times and how much it happens just has it be a part of a trend’s life cycle on the internet, and that temporary life in the public life can vary greatly. That constant effort also does not (solely) consist of making more donations to more places. That’s just another kind of monetary help that’s ultimately just money. That doesn’t tell anyone anything about you other than that you can afford to do so and being able to afford to do this can sway you on either end of the moral scale, whether you care about that or not. To give an example, the overwhelming response to the Notre Dame fire in 2018 showed what could have been possible if everyone donated what they could, and of course the response to that has never happened to any disaster before, and to my knowledge, ever since. All those millionaires and some netizens credited themselves with their affluent donations but everyone else only saw them as those who ultimately did nothing when any other disaster also needed help in the past and since then, so those donations didn’t make them any kind of ally even though they gave more than the majority of the world can ever afford to give in their lifetimes. Why didn’t every other disaster that lasted longer, had more casualties and damage, had more emotionally traumatic damage that lasted from then onwards, have as much support as this one fire that didn’t completely destroy this building? With almost a billion dollars (954 million USD) donated towards restoration in such a short amount of time, there was still anger, especially towards those who have donated that. And people who have donated copious amounts were also not technically millionaires, but still made and had enough to be part of that same 1%. And anyone can be in that nonspecific well-off group, not just people who were born rich or inherited it. There have been debates that this was a matter of how personally interested these rich people suddenly became because they saw the Notre Dame as a beautiful tourist spot full of history, even though there was a museum in Brazil that was nearly completely destroyed, with majority of its contents and even more history gone forever on the same day and didn’t get a fraction as much attention as this did, and got even less donations. Therefore, monetary support doesn’t give you, or anyone, any more moral high ground, no matter how much it is, because again, it’s just money. It can be help, but not like human support. All that being said, I still think it’s great if you can afford to keep donating to people in need, but if you want to make your support stronger and genuine or have a solid foundation that can be paired and amplified with monetary support, it won’t cost you anything but your time and changing behavior. And right now, I bet everyone reading right now has a lot of those two if their wallet is empty. To do so: • Learn about our struggles. We’re not asking you to be total experts on this, but to know enough to answer, “What can I do to help?” and “What do they need right now?” and it’s best to have them answered by us. Listen to us. And keep making more questions the more that are answered. The best way to learn is to ask. • Speak out against hate speech of any kind from anyone, no matter how much you like them, when you see it in the moment, and hold them accountable. Just saying racism is bad isn’t going to help anyone, but to call out a specific person as a racist will challenge them, because there’s more at stake than just a fact that racism is bad. Whether you want to be polite about it or not is your choice, whichever is more effective. Their feelings are definitely not more important than what they are contributing to the problem. • Emotionally check up on us, we aren’t fine if we have to see more of our family’s beat up faces on the news and screens, or see our family and friends being even more scared to go outside with every passing day. Whether it’s talking about the main situation in depth or providing a respite in the form of having fun when asked; emotional check ups are what makes you the real ally first. • Reassure us that whether or not this is just another trend you see everywhere on social media for the day, you’ll always be there for us, and then hold up that promise, follow through with it whenever we are in trouble. If you consistently do this, it won’t turn into a super conscious decision anymore to be an ally, you’ll reprogram yourself to learn and think that you are now involved and can fight with us, whether or not this becomes something in the twitter sidebar to look at. • Acknowledge your privilege as someone who isn’t targeted and, depending on who you are, would never be targeted, in whatever way that would be, and use it as a weapon for us if applicable. Ex. if you’re white and straight and the current group that needs help is not white and not straight, let them speak about their struggles, amplify their voices because you have the privilege of having more people taking you seriously and paying attention to you, and learn about what you can do to help them and make their life easier with them knowing you are an ally. Redirect that attention and authenticity to us because we sure can’t make it by ourselves. • Learn and involve yourself in our culture if that helps you learn more about us, that is not appropriation. We totally welcome people who want to learn more about us in a respectful and open-minded way. You are a constant learner in doing this, as well as doing any or all of the above-mentioned tasks. There’s no real end to being an ally, just as there is no real end to the fight. It’s always better to ask questions than to keep it to yourself and mess up. There was always a better time to learn all of this, but the second-best time is right now. Just because you never learned this earlier doesn’t mean you can’t start to change that. We won’t shame you if today has to be your first day as long as you stay just as eager and able to receive criticism from then onwards. Even if you become well educated, don’t act like you know exactly what it’s like. Because no matter how educated you become, you are ultimately not us. Keep that in mind as you embark on your journey. Constant effort is what every single one of those groups need, I guarantee that. It’s such a great skill that can be used in anything. Consistency is rare and powerful and key in achieving nearly anything you want. But that’s not something we can automatically detect and always takes time to make happen, there’s no shortcut to that. Are you just going to retweet these for a day or week or month or two, or are you going to speak out whether you are going to put a tag on it or not? Are you just going to donate a small fraction of your paycheck once or are you going to keep going whenever you can and donate to even more people that need help that isn’t just part of that group? All we see is that one instance, and people are pouring either their first or their first and last instances of helping us, and there’s no way to differentiate who’s what until that first wave dies down. And that is a journey of watching it be less and less important on the timelines, growing disappointment and sorrow that we have always felt from the beginning, something that no one outside of the current targetted trending group, or anyone who has ever trended, can ever understand or experience. It’s like wearing halloween costumes that are clearly a costume from another culture. You can wear that costume, or in that case, that hashtag for a day. We wear that stigma for life. I hope this post makes you reconsider what you’ve been doing in terms of fighting for social justice, or at the very least, make you uncomfortable enough to think about what you have been doing for such groups of people who need help. Obviously if you are a real ally as I’ve described by not only doing monetary donations if applicable, but fighting back, constantly learning, and emotionally supporting and checking up on your friends constantly, this post isn’t talking about you. And if you don’t want to learn about all this stuff that can be towards the better, then there’s nothing that can ever help you. That’s just willful ignorance at that point and I as well as others are completely free to judge you for that. On the note of being a good person or bad person, I know that’s not how everyone wants to judge themselves. Looking deep enough, it can be subjective, or just a matter of good actions and bad actions instead of good people and bad people. Either way, you have that “good” and “bad” judgement on something, even though that concept itself is also a spectrum, and at times, they can be applied to both people and actions, such as a good person making a bad decision or a bad person making their first good deed. So, whether it’s actions or people, being a “good person” doesn’t excuse you from your mistakes or shitty decisions. A good record can just be completely shattered at any time. A lot of people who we have thought were “good” have been exposed, and those who we thought were “bad” have been redeemed. It’s celebrated in fiction, but apparently not welcomed in real life. And improving your allyship as I described above doesn’t automatically make you a “good person”, if that judgement is what you have for yourself or want to have for yourself, but it IS a very “good action” to get started in expanding your world beyond what you initially knew before this post, because it’s always a “good action” to constantly question what you know before making judgements or actions. That constant questioning is learning and not being compliant with how things are, because things can always be better. Being a bad person entails not caring about doing better and is magnified by being two-faced like being a fake ally. And you can also stop caring at any time about yourself and what your morals are. Not all fake allies are “bad people,” maybe they just needed an awareness check that emotional support makes all of their previous work or work afterwards more authentic and appreciated. I don’t blame anyone who really didn’t think that emotional support wasn’t part of helping those who need it and now take that fact in stride, or just didn’t know how to do that in the first place. But all “bad people” are fake allies because they don’t care enough outside of themselves to change what their environment presents themselves with, or just complain about it without bothering to question or research why things are that way. And obviously, “bad people” would contribute to the problem by either never being an ally in the first place or do the bare minimum in allyship and expect rewards without being caught in the stress that comes with actually fighting for a cause. So, if you read this entire post and are one of those people who do the bare minimum but want the rewards, or think I and others are just too sensitive, and have no intention or desire to change any of your actions around pleas for help from groups of people or even start to think about changing that, I would think you’re a bad person. But that’s only how I judge you. I know plenty of bad people who go on and life happily knowing how many people hate them whether they know them personally or not. If you’re taking that so personally, you could have left much earlier in this longass post. I don’t know what you expected with me talking about this topic and somehow not being super cordial about it. I don’t owe you a polite tone or managing your feelings, and neither does anyone else. If you really think my tone is the problem here more than anything I have ever explained in this post I guarantee you’re a bad person who is just looking for an excuse to completely dismiss this even though you had the opportunity to do so much earlier, around 4,000 words ago. And if you really need someone else to help you with your fragile and insecure feelings, I guarantee that they’re not on the internet. Again, to reiterate, this is just my opinion, feel free to tell me any of your own. I’m not forcing anyone to do or stop doing anything, I just appreciate that you read this far. I hope you reconsider how to fight for your loved ones that aren’t as well off as you are, or how to fight alongside others who have been though the struggles of being either underprivileged or just not as well off. Thank you.

Very small con, really impressive for the first time being held here, and I mainly learned that my camera is slowly dying, but I had a great time there anyways. AX was hell and this was such a nice nice break.