Madame Thursday

WOWOWOW

birchsoda:

karnythia:

nuestrahermana:

This white woman on TV just said about her adopted daughter:

“I adopted her from Colombia. It was like ordering from a catalog I got exactly what I wanted. I used to call her Zoey Jean my little Colombian coffee bean.” 

And yet people ask me why I don’t think kids of color are always better off being adopted by white people. OMFG.

Seriously, WTF?

(via ktempest)

ladyatheist:

“In 1951, the Georgia state welfare director, making an argument for denying Aid to Dependent Children grants to mothers with more than one illegitimate child, noted that “Seventy percent of all mothers of more than one illegitimate child are Negro… . Some of them, finding themselves tied down to one child are not averse to adding others as a business proposition.”The precise economic principle most grossly violated by these women was, according to many, that they were getting something (ADC) for nothing (another black baby). Entering into this scam made single black mothers into chiselers, determined to cheat the public with a bad sell. The fact that it was, overwhelmingly, a buyer’s market for black babies “proved the valuelessness of these children, despite their expense to the taxpaying public. White babies, of course, entered a healthy seller’s market, with up to ten couples competing for everyone one adoptable infant. Spokespeople for this point of view believed that black unmarried mothers should pay dearly for the bad bargain they foisted on society, especially on white taxpayers. Governor Orville Faubus complained in 1959 that ,” By taxing the good people to pay for [ADC], we are putting a premium on illegitimacy never before known to the world.” Many felt that rather than paying for their sins, black women were being paid, by the ADC grants, an exchange that could encourage further sexual and fiscal irresponsibility.”

—

Rickie Solinger, Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race Before Roe v. Wade (emphasis mine)

HOLY SHIT. I have never seen this broken down so simply and concisely before. I can’t believe I never saw it.

This is it!

This is why this argument about “babies for welfare checks” is still around, why it has such weight with so many white people, and why the fact that welfare benefits don’t increase NEARLY enough to cover the additional expenses of an additional child doesn’t sway their conviction that Black women on welfare are just “popping out more babies for more money.”

It doesn’t matter HOW MUCH money it is. It doesn’t matter that more white people are on public assistance. It doesn’t matter that having babies for a welfare check defies logic on every possible level. It doesn’t matter how many times you show them the math!

What matters is that Black women who have babies while on public assistance want SOMETHING (“our tax dollars”) for NOTHING (Black babies).

What matters is that Black babies are seen as worthless, because Black life is seen as worthless. And the white outrage is that not only are Black women going around giving birth to Black babies — which is bad enough — but now they want paid (ANY AMOUNT) for this garbage (BLACK LIVES), too?

I fucking get it now. HOLY SHIT WHITE SUPREMACY.

(via thecurvature)

alexandraerin:

payslipgig:

alexandraerin:

dumbthingswhitepplsay:

euonymy replied to your post:I can see agisem against younger people, like for example, a younger person’s opinions being automatically dismissed just because of age and not by merit.

If the opinions are bad, I’d figure it shouldn’t be hard to show that without just dismissing them out of hand based on age. Still, getting unfairly dismissed sometimes /= oppression.

But I don’t think calling a crap opinion offhand based on age is necessarily bad. If a 12 year old comes to my blog with a bunch of racist shit, I’m going to be like “hon, you’re 12, please learn how to research sooner than later”. I think that’s pretty valid. There are things that younger people share, and things that older people share, and there’s a reason for that. I don’t see an issue with pointing it out.

This is what kills me here: I’d look at that situation and say you were being decent in recognizing the difference between the 12 year old who doesn’t yet know what’s what, and someone twice their age who’s had time for their brain to mature and the opportunity to learn and hasn’t. 

We recognize that the adolescent brain is still developing and that they don’t have the same range of responsible decision-making skills that an adult has not because it helps the Adultocracy maintain its hegemony. We do it because as human beings, children and adolescents are entitled to some basic protections.

Heck, one of the ways that racism works is in stripping the protection of childhood from children of color, through premature sexualization and the decision to prosecute juveniles as adults.

Distinguishing between children and adults isn’t oppressive, but failing to do so can be.

That bolded.  For example: How often in those interviews with Jaden Smith after that karate movie came out, was he treated as a sexually precocious soon-to-be macho man?  It is the duty of the adult population to protect children and teens, but it is typically only for white children that I’ve ever heard the “don’t treat them like a little kid/you should respect their opinions!” argument because society only really expects white children to even have a childhood.  Children of color are treated as adults, from an accountability standpoint, from the day they’re old enough to talk.  Shit, look at Newt Gingrich and his Work for Students idea and tell me that’s directed at middle class white kids…

Ageism exists, sure, but so does intersectionality.

“I resent the term ‘child.’ You’re baby-fying this kid. This kid is a Latino machismo teenager.” - what the lawyer for a teacher who molested a 12 year old student said on national television, on purpose and with his own mouth.

the thing about michael fassbender…

athinkinganimal:

mswyrr:

…is that he’s a domestic violence committing, female co-star intimidating asshole. You can read the details of what he did to his female partner at the link. Regarding his treatment of female costars: Keira Knightly didn’t want him spanking her during one of their scenes in a film & said so while tied up; in reply he said “Keira, you’re tied to a bed. You’re not really in a position to say that.” So when a woman is obviously scared and uncomfortable, his response is to scare her further, really make her feel her powerlessness to control what happens to her body. So that happened. And then some of his fans talked shit about her for not fully appreciating how wonderful it would be to get nonconsensually struck by him.

Basically, I don’t understand the attraction at all. I don’t understand. I want to push him out an airlock every time I have to see his hateful face. I want him and every other man who abuses women off my fucking planet. Kinda now.

But, yanno, I also want to shout “he freaking beat his wife!” whenever I see Sean Penn, so I guess I’m just a ~sensitive bitch~.

I find it interesting that I see their faces on my dash semi-regularly (mostly Fassbender), but apparently Chris Brown’s attractiveness isn’t sufficient to make his domestic violence inconsequential.

[Gif removed of the word “This” in lights, blinking rapidly.]

Reblogging because a) commentary is golden, true, and important and b) for anyone who hasn’t heard about what an asshole Fassbender is.

You wanna condemn Chris Brown for what he did to Rihanna, good. It was wrong. But make sure that’s why you’re condemning him rather than because Chris Brown isn’t the Hot White Boy du jour that all the white fangirls are into. 

Oh, and on another note - Fassbender creeps me out. He seems to have that devious kind of “I enjoy being a complete dick and I’m just waiting to see how I can do something bad to you just because it amuses me” look about him, especially when he smiles. Come on, this is a creepy ass smile, folks. 

(via justjasper)

Also, fuck anyone else out there who thinks the point of addressing privilege(s) is to make you feel guilty

note-a-bear:

Whether or not your dumb ass feels guilt is none of my concern. What concerns me is how you use your privilege to help others. I don’t give a shit what you do with your own time or your own learning. But if you’re not willing to step up to the plate and put yourself on the line when someone who is less privileged than you is being harmed, then you’re worthless to me.

Fuck your guilt.

Guilt is useless.

(via alexandraerin)

I’m trying to workout somethings

blackamazon:

• but that Jane Elliott video and the ensuing is reactions are triggering as hell for me
• I find it interesting how adamant teh one woman who left was adamant about hwo this was a game to her and she didn’t have to play if her needs weren’t being met.  It’s a far more complete picture of liberal politics than most folks let out. It’s a ” fun” thing to do that can only push so far or they are leaving.
• The part that made me laugh was when in the exercise the Latino student goes “and Latinos”. Another really important microcosm moment , I love that Eliott basically goes you’re right, Latinos.
• The young Latino girl broke my heart because if you can’t recognize someone LISTING THE SHIT THAT HAS HAPPENED TO THEM in her sheer bafflement at the reaction… I don’t even know what to say..
• I’m gunshy to talk about theory now for well reasons. But I think it has a LOT to do with the socialization of women as moral authorities has played out in the construction of their political awakenings. And how race is often the one spot they CAN NOT be moral authorities, and how tears ( specifically in situations that default to some semblance of order schools, work where they know there is a HIGHER authority) shift the discussion  back to a morality train where they do HAVE authority.
• Also how ( in the rare cases it happens) where that doesn’t work the tears dry up.
• Plus a tangential thought on how this connects with the role of white women as primary consumers of things and how it went from service to husband god and country to service of self. Which of course talks about who serves this shift or who is EXPECTED to
• As well as the Psychology Today article that so many ( mostly white but some WOC who were interestingly almost al middle class) women talked about viewing their skill level as stagnant and not improvable or evolvable. And how that plays into the resistance to a changing shifting world? If you do not believe you can change , how willing are you to accept changing mores?

(via novazembla)

in response to, “how can white people fight racism?”

Why do White people always ask POCs stuff like this? I just spent 30 minutes Googling “white allies” to find resources. Why the hell did I have to do that? Why does it never occur to White people to do that? Why is the onus always on POCs to make it easy for White people to learn to be less racist? Why do we always have to do the heavy lifting? Why is the footwork always left to us? Why are we always asking the hard questions? Why do we have to have it all figured out? Why is the burden always on us to go out of our way to make the world less racist? There is no one-size-fits-all approach to undoing racism. There is no simple list of Do’s and Don’ts to apply to anti-racist efforts. There is no safe way to undermine White privilege. Each POC will give one or more very different answers because - surprise, surprise! - we’re different! Our experiences of racism are different for a variety of psychological, social, economic, and political reasons. What I would suggest is that, instead of asking random POCs what to do about racism, you figure out how racism operates in your own life and how it affects the POCs you interact with, then work from there.

from here.

(via youarenotyou-deactivated2012022)

Words honestly cannot describe how I abhor what has been done to MLK Jr.’s legacy

lebanesepoppyseed:

MLK Jr. didn’t ask for rights, he wasn’t pandering or sweet to the forces that oppressed him. He was a threat to whiteness through and through.

MLK Jr. wasn’t violent not because he wanted to gain some brownie points from whitedom but because he KNEW, FIRSTHAND, what violence does to a people, both those who are abusing and those who are being abused. 

MLK Jr. didn’t dress in his Sunday best and speak clearly with diction so as to pander or kiss up to white folk. He did it for himself and for his people, to show what form his black identity took. That we in this society read speaking fearlessly and intelligently with passion and power in the face of oppression as “white” is beyond me, because that’s a black attribute through and through.

MLK Jr. didn’t have a problem with individual white people, but with their racism and ignorance on a whole, with their white supremacist society, and with their complacency and willingness to see it perpetuated at the detriment of him and his people. He knew that those who were quiet, who made excuses, who willfully stayed staunch in their ignorance and hatred were just as much a part of the problem as those who were more blatant and aggressive in their hatred. Any compassion coming from him was borne from himself, NOT from anything white people did, not something they at all merited or deserved.

The general way his legacy is portrayed, this whole “Peace & Non-violence” shit is all a ruse to make it about white people. “He was so nice to us, he was polite and peaceful, that is why we chose to give black people rights!”

My fuckin’ ass. 

If MLK jr. was so accommodating and nice to whiteness, then why was he was arrested so much and assassinated, huh?

Huh?

What’s more, white people didn’t give shit. Black people fought for those rights and ripped them from their aggressors’ hands.

That’s how it’s always been. The oppressor is never going to willingly give up power or own up to wrongs and abuse. To destroy oppressive systems you have to be a threat to the way they run, to the privileges and the benefits the people who run it and who get privileged by it gain. Things will get uncomfortable and shitty and you’ll be falsely accused of being violent/aggressive/bitter/stuck in the past/oppressive/over-emotional/uppity, and sometimes, you risk everything for it, but that’s just them trying to silence you, to kill your collective voice by making an example of some of you, to separate you from your justified and righteous rage, the only thing that gives you power and that lends you the voice necessary to hold them accountable.

More importantly than what he was to white people and white supremacy is what he was to black people and people of color. We waste so much fuckin’ time analyzing shit from a white perspective we don’t even talk about how important what he did was for African Americans and other people of color.

That’s the shittiest thing to do to him, to ourselves. Let’s take some time to rethink how we talk about these things.

karnythia:

The Root - Black Actresses: Where are the Good Roles?

Kim Wayans: “I didn’t think we’d still be having this same conversation so many years later …The 90s were so bright and promising for people of color in Hollywood, and I for one thought it would only get better with the chance for me and other black actresses to portray any number of characters and in all types of stories.’’

Debbie Allen: “I remember in the 80s when my sister Phylicia (Rashad) was on the The Cosby Show and I was on Fame, girl, you couldn’t tell me that it wasn’t a brand new day for black women and the way we were portrayed in film and television… No one could have told me we’d go in the complete reverse in the decades to come.’’

Angela Bassett:  “I’m a black actress, honey—what can I tell you but I have no idea what’s next for me.”

Donald Bogle, film historian and professor at New York University: “It’s sad to say that the roles for African-American women haven’t strayed very far from what was comfortable for white or mainstream audiences to see years ago …Roles that show black women as maids, nannies, or sidekicks for the mainstream world continue to reduce black women to support systems and to only being there to service the needs of others. It’s a disturbing trend to see keep repeating itself year after year.’

(Source: newwavefeminism)

Next time someone (white) calls something ghetto, I’m going to ask them, “Do you mean resourceful? Clever? Creative?” Because if you live in the ghetto, those are all things you have to be to overcome your situation. If you don’t have money to do things the easy way, you have to think outside of the box.

muxersita:

uh huh uh huh. 

(Source: neverwillstop, via bad-dominicana)