1. 25 May


    angryasiangirlsunited:

    What Kind of Asian Are You? 

     

  2. 22 May



    Queer people live in a constant narrative of struggle; today we struggle for legally recognized marriage, and in 2003 we struggled for the right to have consensual sex, but 60 years ago queer role models fought for the right to exist in public or private. To gain those rights, they used an effective strategy called assimilation, which dictated that queer people look and act as much as possible like straight people. The Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis both did it intentionally in the ’50s, and it was probably the most aggressive option to say “we are normal, just like you” at a time when police were encouraged to raid gay bars, arrest patrons and publish their names and faces in the newspaper the following day. However, “just like you” literally bleached queer people of color from the movement and rendered trans people invisible, because “just like you” referred to white men in power and their wives who had the sway to validate any queer identity legally. Assimilation was successful in that discrimination against LGBT people is now illegal in many forms, but it also created an “acceptable gay man,” and he was white and masculine and certainly did not say “darling.”

    Look at any on gay dating website or smartphone app and you’ll see our twisted heritage as “preferences” based on a hierarchy of who can pass as a successful straight man: “Looking for masc, musc, no femmes, white only.” Though the irony that none of us is straight does not escape me, I’d like to focus more on how regressive this is; we are literally contributing to our own oppression by upholding this bizarre heritage of misogyny created in the ’50s.

    — What I Learned From Gay Sex: Misogyny and Homophobia
     

  3. 20 May



    ~*~black women and asian men, forever at the bottom of the dating totem pole~*~

     

  4. 15 May


    tastefullyoffensive: [completelyseriouscomics]

    tastefullyoffensive:

    [completelyseriouscomics]

    (via feminist-space)

     

  5. 14 May


    crackerhell:

    blackfoxx:

    tashabilities:

    amberleighjoy:

    Stereotyping and the Whitewashing of POC acting parts? Yep

    So basically, this happened to me yesterday.

    A white man told me to give him ‘spice’, ‘attitude’ and ‘street’ during my audition.

    And it makes me ache.

    I am FUCKING DYING! “I need you to be Blacker………..”

    When she started doing Oprah I fell the fuck out! and the end is so true!

    i wanted to find this funny but instead it just made me sad at how true it is

    lmaooooo i called the ending because it’s so true ;_;

    (Source: phoenix-falls, via crystalsavestheday)

     

  6. 22 Apr



    silly-vasily asked: I did not mean any personal offense whatsoever. I do not deny for one second that there are struggles within each individual race, but there are struggles within my race too, and it is exactly what these people are trying to attack about us. Since white people are a dominant group, some cultures have labeled us as "Supremacists" and "Racists". Some is true, but you're discriminating ME, for having a preference. And that is equally unfair. Don't act like you don't have preferences as well.

    no dude, just no. someone telling you the faults with your so-called “preference” is not discrimination. what’s unfair is that you think it’s okay to box a multitude of women into a few simple traits and then claim you’re being “discriminated” against when someone tells you it’s wrong and hurtful.

    and no, i don’t have a “preference” for any expansive and diverse group of people because i am capable of recognizing that an ethnicity is not a sexual orientation. i don’t have a preference for any race of people because people are not objects you can either like or dislike, they are complex, unique, individual beings and it makes me really fucking sad for you and anyone you ever date that you can’t understand that.

     

  7. 22 Apr



    To the people complaining about POC fetishization..

    silly-vasily:

    I will not change my description, nor will I make an effort to change my preference.

    I like Asian Girls. Always have, always will. It is completely asinine to categorize me as some kind of racist, disgusting, chauvinist bastard because of this.

    I like them because, aside from the apparent attraction, from the Asian culture I have been exposed to, I’ve come to notice that they are very family oriented, very respectful, and well mannered. This is not a stereotype. This is a majority.

    I like them for all the right reasons, and I will continue to prefer them, as far as attraction goes, over other races, whether you guys complain or not.

    It’s who I am.

    It’s what I’m comfortable with.

    I have never in my life, demoralized, offended, or sexually insulted an Asian girl, because of my preference. I had hold them in the highest of respect.

    That does not mean I hold everyone else down, in terms of respect.

    You’re picking a fight with something that isn’t even a problem. It’s human nature to have a fetish.

    If you deny that you have fetishes at any time in your life, then you, my friend, are a bold-faced fucking liar.

    Thank you.

    I’m going to try to respond to this in the best way that I can and I hope that at least a few people who follow me and are more savvy at putting this kind of thing into words will help me out. 

    Firstly, “Asian” isn’t one homogenous group. There are many different ethnicities - Filipina, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Thai, Desi, Indonesian, Malaysian, Cambodian, Vietnamese, and so on - who all make up the label “asian”. They are not all the same. “Asian” is, as many people believe, more of a geographical location than it is an ethnic group. 

    Second, uh yeah, it is a stereotype. I feel like I shouldn’t have to say this, I feel like it should be something we all learned in elementary school, but it is not okay to stereotype a group of people even if that stereotype is positive. Assigning a few general traits to what is literally millions of women based on your interactions with a few is stereotyping. And I don’t think you understand how much that hurts. To assume you know something about someone - whether that something is a positive or negative thing in your mind - because of their ethnicity is stereotyping, it is racist, and it is hurtful. You will probably never understand what it’s like to strike up a conversation with someone only for them to assume a laundry list of things about you, your background, your family, your interests, your sexual likes and dislikes, and your future hopes because of your race. It makes you feel like you don’t exist in that persons’ mind as individual, but rather as a concept, an idea, and that is what you are doing when you say “I like Asian women because they’re so blah blah blah”. You don’t “like” Asian women because of their value as individuals, you like them because of how you can project your gross fantasies onto them. Asian women are not a fucking concept or a list of simple traits that you can box them all into.

    Do you think it’s a coincidence that all the people complaining about being fetishized are people of color? Do you think we’re making it all up? Do you think it doesn’t hurt? Do you think we don’t know what we’re talking about? If you say you “hold asian women in the highest regard” but then totally dismiss them when they tell you how fucking gross your fetish is you’re not respecting anyone.

    Most importantly, IT IS NOT FUCKING OKAY TO FETISHIZE PEOPLE. PEOPLE ARE NOT THINGS OR ACTS FOR YOU TO PROJECT YOUR FANTASIES ONTO. THEY ARE PEOPLE. It is dehumanizing and gross.

    Here is some recommended reading:

    http://stopwhitewashing.tumblr.com/tagged/fetishization

     http://stopwhitewashing.tumblr.com/post/28303739952/dear-non-asian-people-yes-fetishizing-asian-people

    http://www.good.is/posts/dealbreaker-he-s-got-an-asian-fetish/

     

  8. 12 Apr


    The Origin of the phrase “Women of Color”

    “It is a solidarity definition. A commitment to work in collaboration with other oppressed women of color.” 

    Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of white liberals saying “POC is just another way of saying ‘colored!!!’” and “POC is just othering!!” and my personal favorite “White people are poc too because white is the combination of all colors!”

    So here you have it. The term “people of color” is not about biology, or technicality regarding ethnicity, it’s about solidarity, and it is not about white people. 

     

  9. 18 Mar



    The romance industry conflates finding love with looking a certain way, and it’s hard even for the strongest of us not to internalize messages about the way we look. And worse, these messages are normalized. Just think of things people say when they are getting ready to date someone: ‘He’s cute,’ ‘He’s short,’ ‘He’s kind of chubby,’ ‘He’s tall and fine.’ Or men: ‘I prefer slender girls,’ ‘I’m not really into fat girls,’ ‘I prefer Asian chicks,’ and on and on. It is completely acceptable to say the most appalling things about the way people look when it comes to dating, and if someone is called out for it, their opinion becomes a matter of ‘preference.’

    What gets ignored in calling this level of categorization ‘just preference’ is a history and culture of mainstream advertising that impacts our psychology, causing us to actually want to respond to certain things over others. It’s hardly a coincidence that people are attracted to images of femininity that have been beaten into their psyches….We are taught to prefer certain things over others, and when we repeatedly see the same exaggerated images of femininity and masculinity, we internalize a specific standard of beauty and begin to strive for it unconsciously. Considering the exaggerated nature of these kinds of images, preference is not really a ‘preference’; it is more like a culturally sanctioned fetish.
    — 

    Samhita Mukhopadhyay, Outdated: Why Dating Is Ruining Your Love Life (via uxxr)

    “Considering the exaggerated nature of these kinds of images, preference is not really a ‘preference’; it is more like a culturally sanctioned fetish.”

    hence why i don’t buy it for a second when people are like “oh i’m not into black people/asian people/anyone who isn’t white. i’m not racist, it’s just my preference”

    you and your “preferences” don’t exist in a vaccuum, okay? the fact that you “prefer” to only be involved with white people is hardly an individual decision, but rather a result of the stereotypes and images you’ve been fed by the media about various people of color. it’s not a coincidence that you’ve ruled out an entire group of people as being attractive when white features and attributes are held up as the standard, the ideal, the mainstream and most desirable. it kind of goes the same way for people who fetishize a group of people as well. 

    (Source: brute-reason, via feminist-submissive)

     

  10. 24 Feb



    Having a Discussion With White People About Racism In the Social Network Sphere

    1. Me: Here is an issue that pertains to racism.
    2. White Person: What? Racism has nothing to do with this.
    3. Me: Here is a recollection of my own personal experiences, my feelings, and my own thoughts on how race and racism is a factor in this issue.
    4. White Person: That's not "proof" that something is racist. Don't you think you're being a little oversensitive?
    5. Me: Here is a collection of links and resources written by similarly-minded people (of color) who have put the issue in a better light and laid it out in a more simple way than I can. Happy reading.
    6. White Person: *without bothering to read any of the articles* Whatever, racism isn't an issue here. I don't care what you or any other person of color says, if I don't think it's racist, then it can't possibly racist! Can't we just put race behind us and worry about more important things?
    7. Other White Person: *unfriends/unfollows me*
    8. At which point I become exasperated and stop participating in the discussion, allowing all the white folk involved to believe that they have won, and that they are right.