paradiscacorbasi:

Racism, despite the protests of pundits and bloggers, is not “over”. Not by a longshot.

Not while: We have a black president who received 4 times as many death threats as any other president, specifically on account of his race.

Not while we have people sending out pictures of monkeys and apes labeling it “The Obama Family” Not while we have people sending out pictures of Barack Obama dressed as a pimp and Michelle Obama dressed as a prostitute.

Not while we have people sending out pictures implying there’s domestic violence between Barack and Michelle Obama.

Not while we have politicians sending out pictures of the White House Lawn replanted with watermelons, and KFC buckets.

Not while people try to defend the president by saying he’s biracial, because there are many a person out there who simply don’t care. His skin and hair denote and code him as a black person, so he’s black. Not while there are white people who still think it’s okay to hang nooses “as a joke” when there are people alive whose family members died this way at the hands of white people and say anybody offended is “just being sensitive”.

Not while there are white people who don’t understand why it’s offensive to First Nation Peoples to wear feathered headdresses when their ancestors are the ones who abused, assimilated and killed the First Nation Peoples’ ancestors. Not while there are people who want to use the N word in “a non-racist way”. They don’t seem to grasp that there is no non-racist way to use that word. It was created to be oppressive. It was created to demean, deride, and degrade. Anytime that word is used by someone who is not a person of color, it is racist because of its extensive and painful history of how it has been used. People of color may or may not choose to reclaim it but white people complaining about not being allowed to use it is not helpful. Not while there are people who in all honesty and sincerity ask why there’s BET but why there’s Telemundo, why there’s KTN but not White Entertainment Television when all television and movies default to white entertainment television, and that in any medium where the characters are written originally as characters of color  — when Hollywood produces them they hire white actors to play those roles and people rationalize/justify it by saying “they picked the best actor for the role” when the casting calls specify specifically caucasian actors. See “The Last Airbender”. See “Akira”.

Not while a person of color using a racial slur toward a white person or another person of color is called out for “reverse racism”.   If  call a white person a “honky cracker” that does not threaten the white people power base.   “If an Asian calls me the N word,” that does not allow me sufficient leverage to make the Asian sufffer.    Racism is a cultural set of mores that are ingrained into society to keep the white people at the top of the heap, socially and power wise.

Not while we teach MLK’s “I Have A Dream” speech, watered down to be
palatable rather than his other speeches which can be a bit more
inflammatory for also being honest.

Not while talk show hosts and other celebrities can say “Ling long,
ching chong” and pull their eyes back but not understand why that’s
harmful and offensive.

Not while Hollywood won’t even finance a film with an all black cast.

Not while Hollywood continues to code “white” as good and pure and
“dark” as bad and evil. See: The Muppets vs. The Moopets.

Not while Hollywood keeps making Mighty Whitey movies. See “Avatar”.

Not while Hollywood won’t offer roles to actors of color that don’t
portray them as negative stereotypes or servants. See George Lucas
speak on his difficulties of getting “Red Tails” released.

Not while white people can with all sincerity say they believe a
person of color is playing “the race card” as if it were some way to
gain an advantage over white people. There’s a history of oppression,
assimilation, obliteration and erasure over years which is still
institutionalized to keep people of color as getting less than those
of white complexion. People of Color still make less money for the
same work as a white person doing the same job. Men of color make less
than white men. Women of color make less than white women. Even if
there _were_such a thing as a race card, institutionalized
racism means that it would still not give People of Color an
advantage because white people as the masters of society is that
deeply entrenched.

Not while politicians still make out people of color as the reason and
cause for all of America’s ills. Not while they still try to keep
education away from people of color.

Not while politicians say people of color were_better off_ as
slaves because then our families would at least be intact (never mind
that as slaves people of color could be sold away from family members
they were forced to birth in the first place)

Not while current politicians who hope to be President and represent
the American People say that we should return to segregation.

Not while white people have no problem whatsoever yelling “GO BACK TO
AFRICA” when it was their ancestors who brought Africans here against
their will, abused them, worked them to death, tortured them.

Not whle “jungle fever” is considered slumming, and women who date
people of color considered “inferior” for doing so.

Not while the idea of restitution is scoffed at for those people of
color whose labor made many white families rich. If those slaves ahd
been paid, those families would be far less prosperous than they are
today with their old money handed down generation to generation.

Not while DWB [driving while black] still holds a greater chance for
an arrest and a conviction for a smaller offense than the same offense
perpetrated by a white person. Not while the prisons are filled with
people of color for minor infractions, but white people who commit the
same infractions are let off with a slap on the wrist.

Not while white people can see statistics of people of color vs. white
for arrests/convictions and say “well those people should stop
committing the crimes” and ignore their own people committing the same
crimes and not being punished as severely.

Not while a college professor can be arrested getting into his own home.

Not whle a child of color’s hair can be cut for playing with it
because the white teacher got frustrated.

Not while a child of color can break his leg and be forced to crawl
across the ice because he’s “a big boy”.

Not while children of color are forbidden from performing in ballet
recitals because their hair is not “in a bun”.

Not while white persons treat people of color like resources and
educational materials. We are not books or videotapes. There are
such things out there if you want to know by people who chose to
educate as part of their vocation.

Not while white persons demand “equal treatment” by way of
scholarships since “the people of color get all the scholarships”
when there are already scholarships out there for people of Irish,
Russian, Armenian, Italian, Spanish, French and whatever else ethnic
origin.

Not while white kids can get drunk and murder a black man _on
camera_ and show no remorse for what they’ve done, and think of it
as fun.

Not while reports show up on twitter and the news of customers getting
receipts referring to them as LADY CHINKY EYES or CHING and CHONG.

Not while white kids can call it “spoons” and treat it like a game to
throw things at a lone PoC from a van full of whtie people.

Not while Martin Luther King’s birthday is only more occasion for a
sale and his name reduced to MLK.

Not while civil rights activists are dismissed, ignored, and
assassinated and those responsible do not have to face consequences.

Not while white children get manhunts and notices on the news but
people of color have to network amongst themselves if one of ours goes
missing.

Not while white people chosen for the news are always artciulate and
the default version of well-spoken, but they choose the least
articulate, or uneducated-sounding people of color to be on aired news
reports.


Not while the majority whip out the Tone Argument to say Black People
have too much rage. But when people of color have asked politely for
rights, the masters of society have not raised a finger from their
place of privilege to do anything to change things so that the playing
field is truly, truly equal across color lines.

Not while white people pooh-pooh the experiences of People of Color as
‘oversensitive’ or ‘overreacting’ and tell us to ‘get over it
already’.


True equality means this systematic and institutional discrimination
against races is gone. Completely. And the majority of well-meaning
white people don’t realize how entrenched it is. The minority of
white people who benefit from this privilege _like it the way it
is_ and don’t really want to see it changed.

And yes, you can Google everything I’ve mentioned here to see if it’s
true. I encourage you to do so. Overcome your natural tendency to
scoff and say “oh, it can’t be that bad.”

Yes it can.

Yes, it is.

It’s that bad.

It’s worse.

There are many examples I have forgotten.

And if you still think racism isn’t that big a deal?  Here’s a little mental image for you.

This one post was written by one person who has described all the little racist things she can recall from the past year just off the top of her head. 

Got that image firmly in your head?

Now multiply the number of incidents I mention by every person of color in the US over the age of six months.  People over the age of 65? They count double because they lived through the civil rights movement. 

(Source: skyliting)