theadora

The original push behind naming cultural appropriation and having these conversations were so that we as a society could evaluate why we were punished for our heritage while white People were not. It was supposed to be about seeking solutions. The idea was to create a society where we could celebrate our cultures with impunity. It was never about telling white people that they “weren’t allowed” to do certain things. We did ask that white People stop doing certain things because they weren’t doing them respectfully and were not invited to do them, but the primary reason we asked them to desist was to reclaim the things they had stolen and to reassign them culturally back where they belonged.

White “allies” saw these conversations happening and instead of trying to aplify our own voices or even try to learn about the complexities behind why we were saying what we were saying, they instead began screaming over us and creating a narrative that was hardly even the bones of what we originally set out to say. It was like they took the conversation we were trying to have, completely decontextualized it, and stripped it of all it’s nuance in order to gain social currency by seeming progressive.

So the conversation around cultural appropriation went from “This aspect of our heritage belongs to us and we find it egregious that we are shamed for it. What steps can we take to address the racism that’s creating this situation as well as rehome the things that have been stolen” to “you’re not allowed to do that because if you do that you’re racist, we don’t really understand why that’s racist but you’re not allowed to do that and if you do that you’re a klansman no exceptions. So you’re not allowed because because”

At the end of the day, did I like the fact that sally was wearing dreads? No. But my primary concern was not that sally was wearing dreads but rather that sally could wear dreads and I couldn’t. THAT was the intended focus of those conversations. It was about addressing the inequality. It was about us. Now the conversation is just about sally and were completely forgotten.

and it sounded pretty tasty so after the vid i scrolled down to see what people thought of it, and i just really need to share with you all what the comment section is like

and for the one that broke me:

post, which includes a picture of a bag of used inhalers, says: Another batch of used inhalers sent for recycling.  There is absolutely no need for these to go to landfill.  Inhalers are made of high quality plastics and aluminium.  Please keep returning these to the pharmacy, we really appreciate it.  Please share this important message (blushing emoji) (bracelet emoji?)

Malcolm X: Our History Was Destroyed By Slavery

If google, Facebook, Apple aren’t asking their software engineers, who can all do their jobs at home but maybe less effectively, to come into the offices…then it isn’t safe. These companies aren’t uniquely benevolent, they have all sorts of wild ways to extract more value from their employees that include making their employees feel special for working there. (Hell, google and Facebook have campuses set up like college campuses with free food, gyms, clubs, etc that exist primarily to convince young programmers to spend more hours at work. Apple is a little less college campus-y and more…well…how you would expect it to be, but it’s still got the gyms and the food) needless to say, their employees are probably less effective working at home. But the powers that be have surely calculated that any lost productivity from being at home is less significant than the productivity lost from, say, losing a teammate to coronavirus, or being afraid to be in work due to the coronavirus, or even just the damage forcing their employees back against their will would do to their brand.