a real apology isn’t about excuses. a real apology isn’t a justification. a real apology is “i did x and it made you feel y. even if i was feeling z, it doesn’t justify the way i lashed out at/treated/etc you. you didn’t deserve that and im sorry” or SOMETHING like that but i’m sick and tired of people using their own emotional state as a barrier against taking real responsibility lol
as a general rule. if what we’re calling ‘cultural appropriation’ sounds like nazi ideology (i.e. ‘white people should only do white people things and black people should only do black people things’) with progressive language, we are performing a very very poor application of what ‘cultural appropriation’ means. this is troublingly popular in the blogosphere right now and i think we all need to be more critical of what it is we may be saying or implying, even unintentionally.
There is nothing wrong with everyone enjoying each other’s cultures so long as those cultures have been shared.
Eating Chinese food, watching Bollywood movies, going to see Cambodian dancers, or learning to speak Korean so you can watch every K drama in existence is totally fine. The invitation to participate in those things came from within those cultures. The Mexican family that owns the place where I get fajitas wants me to eat fajitas. Their whole business model kind of depends on it, actually.
If you see something from another culture you think you might want to participate in, but you don’t know if that would be disrespectful or appropriative, you can just…ask. Like. A Jewish friend explained what a mezuzah was to me, recently. (It’s the little scroll-thing near their front doors that they touch when they come into their house. It basically means “this is a Jewish household.”)
“Oh, cool,” I said. “Can I touch it? Or is it only for Jewish people?”
“You can touch it or you can not touch it,” she said. “I don’t care.”
“Cool, I’m gonna touch it, then.”
“Cool.”
It’s not hard.
You want to twerk, twerk. I’ve never heard a black person say they didn’t think anybody else should be allowed to twerk. Just that they want us to acknowledge that they invented that shit, not Miley fucking Cyrus.
this is a good post.
Thank you, I was trying to sort this out in my head but you explained it very well.
if you’re offline or away and i message you something (like a link to a meme or a picture or w/e) honestly just assume that i’m just leaving it there for when you get back and not expecting you to answer straight away. i don’t need you to respond with “hey, sorry, i wasn’t at the computer!” or anything. i was leaving u a gift for later.
This also applies if you’re online and just don’t want to or have the energy to deal with humans in the moment. Just because we have the ability to reply in real time does not mean we have the obligation.
In the Italian city of Verona, local street artist Cibo paints colorful wall art full of appetizing food over neo-nazi graffiti (x)
“It’s my civic duty, and my right … honestly I feel like have a right to cover [erase] these kinds of things. Since I’m doing a public form of art, I have to take care of my city and … it’s like my own art gallery. How do you explain a swastika to a child? How do you do it? It’s impossible. It’s a racist message. And it’s not okay .”
The fact that the gay community needs like 18 app major apps just to fuck or meet someone is very telling. Grindr for white twinks, scruff and growlr for white bears and chasers, jack’d for anyone who isn’t white (and weed), etc… Half of the profiles on Grindr say things like “No fats, fems, or blacks”, “Asians, move along” or “White only please. Not racist, just a preference.” We scream at the world for treating us like outcasts yet we segregate and marginalize ourselves. Don’t ever forget that misogyny, transphobia and racism are just as present in the lgbtq+ community as it is amongst heterosexual people.
The white gays on tumblr dot com when they see this post
