Black Panther

like in britain some houses are terraced or semi-detached

but in america they’re like “dON’t tOUch mE!”

#GrowingUpWithMyName reveals the subtle racism of everyday life 

“Yes, we took her and we raped her. So what?” - Alleged words of US Sergeant Michael J. Coen to the mother of a 12-year-old rape victim.

whatever. i clearly stated that i was in the wrong and even posted information about what it is as education. i even started the whole thing by calling myself out however when you’re on the hunt to be insulted, you’ll find something. 

let’s be clear about this, we are all ignorant about something. i know i am. i’m learning everyday about things, places and people i do not know. ignorance is a part of being a human being because we are not born knowing everything. i taught myself japanese and learned a lot about the people and culture in doing so. i was highly ignorant of both the language, the customs, the people, the country and their history beforehand and i’m sure that even today as i write this, there are load of things about that culture and language i don’t know. i’m pretty sure i’m wildly ignorant of native american languages and customs, russian language and customs (even though i had plenty of russian friends in college), hindu, chinese, south asians, chezhs and on and on and on. i’m also pretty sure i’m going to die not having learned much (if anything at all) about said people and cultures because, really, who has the time nowadays? in this way we are all ignorant because basic ignorance is the lack of knowledge about a people, place or thing. this is something we all suffer from because we are not born knowing everything and it’s impossible for us to ever know everything. it’s not something to ever be ashamed of and anyone who would try to make you feel ashamed of this is being a total and complete hypocrite because there’s tons of shit they don’t know. 

however general ignorance that we live with everyday is not the same as the ignorance that’s tied to racism and sexism. in those instances, the ideology of racism and sexism fuels the ignorance. the racism and sexism comes first and then the ignorance acts as supporting beams. in this manner the ignorance is really cherry picking and confirmation bias which means said ignorance is willful. more importantly this is ignorance with a purpose and the purpose being to dehumanize, belittle, disrespect, deface, mock a group with the intent of casting down and oppressing said group to lift another group up. that’s different from just not knowing about a custom or a people. 

here’s an example. if one of you non-haitians came into my childhood home as a child when my mother was still with us, everything would be cool. that is until you decided to whistle. yup, whistle. in many haitian cultures, whistling is considered to be extremely rude, especially in the presence of adults. as my mother would say, “there’s no dogs around here so who are you whistling at?!” now here’s the kicker, i lived with this my whole life and even i don’t fully understand it hahaha. that means of my own culture, there are some holes in my understanding that i would like to fill but haven’t gotten a chance to. still untl i do i just know, no whistling around haitian adults. now when my friends now if you came to my home and did that, my mom would be very upset (which would be her kneejerk reaction) but she would also understand that you don’t know the customs and made a mistake. she’s tell you not to do it, why and that would be it. you would go from being ignorant, to be taught and your next move would be telling. your next move would be to either respect her wishes, home and customs or to show utter disrespect by whistling like you were just told not to. now in the case of children, said disrespect is again not automatically indicative of hatred. kids are generally rule breakers, line pushers and the quickest way to get a kid to do something is to tell them NOT to do that very thing. however if the child came into the situation having already been taught that haitian customs are low and haitian people do not deserve respect, then the whistling, especially after being told not to and why not to, is not merely an act of youthful defiance but evidence of cultural hatred. so again, in regards to racism and sexism, the hatred comes first and then the ignorance fuels the hatred. 

the question of course is whether or not it can work the other way around? can someone first simply be ignorant in a general sense and because of that general ignorance become a racist or sexist? i don’t think so. i think the framework of racism and sexism must exist first because that informs the consumption of information afterwards. and remember that we live in a society where racism and sexism radiates from every pore. even at very young ages we become very aware who in this society is favored and who isn’t. who is thought of as important and who isn’t. it’s inescapable. it permeates our minds very very early on in our journey on this plane and it takes act, conscious work to fight it. a work that very few people actually do.