I'm a writer. (18+) Just casually exploring the internet. Check out my books on Wattpad, or here cause I also post them on here as well! Love and Marriage!  Talk to me and share your story if you want!!!  Share your work because as much as I love to write, I love to read as well! I share my original content and writing tips that I find to help out anyone struggling with writing! And other writing things that I find relateable! You can also find me on Wattpad @RainbowGlittrÂ
You can cure people by removing their illness and turning it into slime, which must be kept sealed in jars. The slime still carries the sickness, and if anyone else touches it, they can catch the illness themselves.
people who don't use or spend time on tumblr don't really understand how solid this place is for creatives and how we could be living in artist utopia if they fully undid the nsfw ban. the tag system? the dashboard? the silly anons who will send you the most insane sentences known to mankind? having your very old, shitty art make the rounds again because somebody finds value from it and wants to show their friends? no other place even comes close
âI have characters/a world, but no plot, what do I do?â
Here are some options!
âïž Disrupt normalcy
What does a normal day look like in your world, or to your characters? What are ways that could be entirely thrown off track?
If your characters go to a magical university, maybe the magic becomes corrupt, or thereâs a mysterious death. If your character is an assassin, maybe they recognize one of their targets, or they fail to eliminate a high-profile target, and now they need to decide if they admit their failure to their bosses. Think about how your characters would react to this, how the authorities in your world would respond, etc.
đ Wants/goals of your cast
Do your characters actually want anything? What are they working towards in their everyday life? Whatâs a dream goal theyâd take if it was presented to them, but canât get right now? Figure out what they want, and then figure out why they canât have it. That is the core of conflict.
Does your magical university-goer want to graduate in their major, or are they doing it because their parents insist, maybe they want to study something else entirely, but thereâs a lot of external pressure on them? Maybe your assassin wants to be the top of their organization, but to do so they need to kill someone dear to them? Maybe they fail to catch their high-profile target because the target they were trying to kill was their boss, in order to take their job, but they got found out?
đ°ïž Systemic issues
Think about your world. Are there any issues youâve established that you can explore in your conflict? Is the government over-controlling, is there prejudice against any members of society, are there forms of slavery, is there a large class distinction or a strict caste system? You could explore how your characters exist in a world that experiences these things, how your antagonists use them to their advantage, or how the protagonists try to fix these issues. Not every society is going to be perfect, so play with it!
To get into their university, does your magician need to pass an elitist certification exam? Are there laws about who can perform magic? What does your assassin think about other laws, not just the ones about murder? Is there a reason assassins as a business are being explored here, is there a lack of other ways to deal with inter-personal conflict supported by authorities?
âïž Character flaws
Look at your characters, their pasts, their general personality. Why do they act the way they act, and what destructive behaviors do they have? Is there anything that could cause inter-personal conflict, or just regular conflict?
Does your magician cheat on tests to get better grades and impress their peers/parents/teachers? Does your assassin have trouble trusting people, are they always planning a way to end the relationship at the drop of a hat? How would these character flaws affect their relationships and how they interact with the rest of your cast? Maybe two characters have flaws that really rub against each other in the wrong way; someone is brutally honest because they think lying is wrong, and someone refuses to say anything critical because they canât not people-please. Does person A think lying is wrong because they were lied to very badly in the past? Is it just related to the way their brain and sense of justice works? Does person B have a past of being insecure, from friends or from family members? Maybe they have abandonment issues and donât want to say anything that makes people leave them again?
đ Scale of your stakes
There are many different kinds of stakes and conflict, and not everything has to be world-ending superhero action movie number five hundred. The stakes of a romance novel will usually be centered around the main characters getting together, or falling out. Thereâs plenty of cozy stories about being unsure if theyâll be able to raise enough money to buy back the family bakery. Any level of stakes are viable, as long as theyâre important to your characters. If your character can leave and never do anything to further the plot again with no consequences, your stakes are nonexistent. You need to find a reason they canât walk away from this.
If thereâs a murder at your magicianâs university, maybe theyâre a suspect and need to clear their name. If their magic becomes corrupt, maybe they have a clock ticking down on how long they have to fix it before it corrupts their soul and they die. If your assassin recognizes their target, they have to weigh whatâs most important to them; completing the job successfully, or keeping a person they know alive. They could leave, but that would be a failure too, and they would probably be pursued. If they fail to catch their target, maybe theyâre put on probation, maybe their employers are starting to question their worth, and they need to complete this next mission perfectly in order to avoid getting disappeared.
đ°ïž Themes
What is the story about? What conversation are you having with your readers? What ways can you incorporate that into the plot?
Maybe the magicianâs story is about coming of age, maybe itâs about the elitism of academia, maybe itâs about pursuing your own dreams instead of what your family wants/generational trauma. Maybe the assassin has to learn itâs okay to open up and be soft, maybe itâs about revenge, maybe itâs about the cycle of violence. These can inform the direction your story goes, and what sort of choices and development your characters have. Every story will have several themes, but thinking about a few of them to inform your plot direction can be a good start.
âïž Genre and tropes
What genre does your story fall into? There are different expectations for each genre (for example, romances need to have a happily ever after/happily for now to be considered a romance), and thereâs a lot of common tropes and themes in each genre. Most stories will fit into 2-3 genres, some of the most popular being crime, fantasy, romance, sci-fi, and horror, each of which have many subgenres within them, I recommend doing research into these yourself. For example, my main project would fall under fantasy as a main genre, since it uses magic and is in a world different than our own, but more specifically would fall under dark fantasy for darker tone and horror elements, and gaslamp fantasy for a Victorian-inspired setting that involves magic. If I wanted ideas, I would want to look at common dark fantasy and gaslamp tropes, prompts, and themes.
Thereâs hundreds upon hundreds of tropes, because tropes are just, things that happen in your story. You cannot make a story without utilizing tropes. Thereâs a lot of tropes that can be used regardless of genre (found family, villains and heroes working together, redemption or corruption arcs, etc), or tropes that are more genre-specific (enemies to lovers in romance, chosen ones in fantasy, the final girl in horror, etc). Thereâs plenty of lists of tropes in each genre, and finding ones youâre interested in may help spur plot ideas.
The magicianâs story is going to be fantasy for sure, because magic is involved, but could fall into a number of subgenres; urban fantasy, fantasy of manners, dark fantasy, magical realism, etc. The assassinâs story has a lot more wiggle room, it could fall into grimdark, contemporary, thriller, or mystery, as well several others if we were to add fantasy, sci-fi, romance, historical, etc. elements.
âThe Advantages of Being Quietâ- The Policing of Black Emotions
ââŠamongst the minor nuisances of a West India town, are whistling and singing⊠Negroes are very fond of these execrable accomplishment- execrable as practiced by them; for as they have stentorian organs of noise⊠A negro never seems to be happy but when he is yelling and bawling, whistling or singing, and he cannot understand the advantages of quiet.â
-Five Years Residence in the West Indies, Volume II- Charles William Day
Have you heard these things before:
Everyone claims the Black Character is boring... But then suddenly, White Character that is both the fan favorite and canonically nothing like that, suddenly has some extremely familiar qualities...
There will be Black characters- often women- that are close to an MC, but those characters will be ignored for someone irrelevant who receives an entire plot line... Because somehow it wasnât possible for the Black character to fill that role despite doing so...
Black people are in a public place, and they are laughing. People are uncomfortable because theyâre âtoo loudâ⊠but have never once spoken up against loud white people, men in particular, taking up just as much space and sound.
A Black person says their perspective online, speaking from a place of emotion because they are directly affected⊠and no one listens or shares, worried that itâs âtoo aggressiveâ and will cause conflict. But a white person will share that same perspective, in ânice wordsâ or maybe even really obnoxiously, and suddenly that perspective is shareable, understandable⊠safe.
This really ought not to have been a lesson, that somehow our feelings are not⊠understandable or acceptable. In a way, it feels extremely demeaning, to have to explain something that is so innately connected with the human experience. Everything that Iâve talked about before is going to apply here, because the truth is, it doesnât matter how good the writing and characterization is if you arenât willing or capable of comprehending the characters due to your own pre-existing bias for Black people and our emotions. So if you havenât read my prior lessons, particularly the stereotype series⊠roll on back first.
"it's gonna be a long lesson?" Yes. It very much tis.
âThe Black character (person) just isnât relatable!â
People will often claim, with no sense of shame or forethought, that they donât ârelateâ to the Black characters âas muchâ, and they donât see that on the flip side of that, they do not offer grace or objective understanding for the Black characters âas muchâ. I shouldnât have to be the same type of person you are in order to understand you! To even want to understand you!
Not only will they not understand Black characters, but in a misguided effort to interact with Black characters, will project their own biases onto them: theyâll make the Black character something they are not in order to fit what they unconsciously believe Blackness should be. This happens with real Black people as well- the biases donât come from nowhere!
This includes but is not limited to emotions often associated with this antiblackness: anger, meanness, sneakiness, aggression, hypersexuality, arrogance.
Meanwhile, the emotions we are often really expressing are things we arenât supposed to be: sad, scared, hurt, offended, threatened, anxious, confused, confident, happy.
Very often, our emotions are perceived as âdangerousâ. How many times has a Black person dared to speak up against something and been accused of being a âbotâ, a âpsyopâ, of âpropagandaâ? As if, by having an unfamiliar perspective that conflicts with your comfortable status quo, they must not be someone real- their emotions, their pain, must not be real. It must be a ploy to affect the emotions of the real people that matter, because surely the Black people THEY imagine would not seek to disturb their peace with their realityâŠ
Itâs odd, believing the only Black people that are real, are the ones that serve you, and the ones that donât, arenât real or are threats. Itâs a form of antiblackness that has existed, at least in the US, since the abolition of slavery. A mindset that has been exported globally with the rest of the United Statesâ hegemony- so yes, it is a common mentality with nonblack people of color globally, to think that Black people are speaking âout of their placeâ.
âUppityâ
If youâve ever been in a public comment section of literally any Black creator being happy, confident, charismatic, self-respecting, proud of themselves, or even just minding their own business with a smile⊠Youâll find a range of people who make it a point to be vocally uncomfortable about it. From overt racism to covert yet equally if not more infuriating accusations of âbraggingâ and even ânarcissismâ. As if I need permission to be happy, that my happiness means someone else is lacking. As if the only way to be appropriate is to have humility for online strangers, despite my successes having nothing to do with your failures.
This is not me saying that arrogance doesnât happen! This is me saying that a lot of times, what yâall consider arrogance is not because it actually is arrogant, but because you are uncomfortable with our confidence, particularly when we donât weigh it against your societal approval but against our own.
Think about the quote I posted earlier. West Indian Black people whistling and singing while doing all the labor that white bodies donât wanna do, and Charles William Day has the audacity to say that their singing is âstentorianâ (too loud) and âexecrableâ (terrible). As if it is an inconvenience to him, to their society, to have to HEAR the Black people whose lives they have captured and enslaved for their own benefit!
An example of this is the âshut up and dribbleâ situation. During the height of Black Lives Matter, Black athletes were speaking out about injustices towards Black Americans, and this pissed off a LOT of people who expected them to⊠well, shut the fuck up and dribble. As if their only value was in entertaining audiences, but not to consider their humanity. Because youâre not supposed to be heard!
Another example of this is when Black people arenât sorry. This is one of my favorite and most commonly used tactics against racists and racism- and it always works. Iâve stopped apologizing for respecting myself, for pointing out when Iâve been mistreated and standing on that, for demanding that Iâm the one who deserves respect.
You would not believe how angry that makes a lot of people! If a Black person is not willing to be demeaned or is nonplussed, it throws off the equilibrium. Socially weâve taught Black people to lower their heads and be non-intimidating for the sake of maintaining order- not peace, order. But at this point, if youâre already intimidated or insulted due to my Blackness, then thereâs no point in lowering myself any further!
Consider Afromanâs two trials:
To be clear: Afroman is Black MAGA đ this is not to say he is a role model. HOWEVER! This court case showed that as much as he might want to dance for white conservatives, at the end of the day he is Still Black and Still Subject to what that means. Which means, he was supposed to bend the knee and submit here when the police raided his home. Instead, he was not sorry! They tried to LEGALLY- in a court of law- use the embarrassment and tears of the white woman cop who barged into his home illegally and threatened his and his childrenâs life. And it didnât work. Not only was he not sorry, but he mocked them- publicly! And won! Despite the on-stand display of white woman tears and white male insecurity⊠he still won! Thatâs not the norm, but it goes to show that hurt feelings do not equal violation of rights.
Itâs much harder to deal with when it comes to the professional world; unlike peopleâs bad takes online, not bending your head to microaggressions at work may cost you a job. Once again, itâs why racism is more than hurt feelings- as demeaned as I may feel, when I am in a room where Whiteness is the prevailing mindset, I cannot always risk respect over loss of livelihood.
As an extreme example of this: weâve discussed the Mammy and the Uncle Tom in prior lessons, so I wonât repeat myself with definitions. But the core part of why these archetypes were so palatable to white people as the standard of Good Blacks is because they were âselflessâ. They never questioned authority, they always placed the needs of others over their own, their role was to coddle and comfort Whiteness, to act as though being a slave was the most natural thing they could be to prioritize their owners. Consider what the alternative of not obeying a slave master/mistress was!
âIâve never seen this beforeâ Yes, you have. If you have never seen it called out, itâs because you havenât spent a lot of time around Black people that trust you. It reminds me of the time someone said âthat parents demand respect, but what they mean is authorityâ. The world expects to have authority over Black expression, and is appalled when we reject that.
âIsnât That a Stereotype?â
I admit, I am getting a bit exhausted of this question. Not even because I donât want to encourage curiosity or understanding- I am glad that weâre trying to avoid being racist! But it is tiring to realize that people believe stereotypes are âBlack people not behavingâ, essentially. Of Black people being âbadâ and people seeing it. As if antiblack stereotypes are because of Black people and not the racists that came up with them, as if that mindset is not equally as racist.
Black people shouldnât have to be âgoodâ for you to not treat them as inhuman. When I think of all that villainous and antagonistic white characters in media- why canât it be like that? Why is it that white people donât have to defend their entire race every time one of them is violent on screen? Especially when- being honest- people of color have a lot more reason to believe that that white violence is more likely in real life? Why do I have to explain why a Black person doing things on screen is not a reflection of ALL of us?
Anywho, I chose movies that were emotionally charged as low branch examples. All of our stories deserve to be told, but if you can only stomach the easy ones, of course youâll never realize just how much of the bad youâve internalized. Can you watch a movie with us (and UNDERSTAND it) in a nuanced light? The way you would expect your own story to be treated and understood?
Moonlight
Yâall want to know about how it might be for a closeted gay Black boy in the hood growing into a closeted young gay Black man, this is certainly an option. For taking us through the journey of a dark-skinned queer Black boy?? And how he grows big and strong but is still quiet and unsure, the way society acts like he cannot be?? Because heâs from the hood?? As if those experiences are mutually exclusive? Masterclass in writing and acting. Beautiful movie all around, all Black cast. It deserved film of the year.
Moonlight is a story that, for all intents and purposes, Tumblr should have loved. Angst, gay, bad parenting and seeking forgiveness, found family and mentorship, discovering sexuality while being in love with the straight best friend, compulsory heterosexuality, the homoeroticism of the trials of boyhood, vengeance on the childhood bully, reconciliation, touch starvation and yearning... Tumblr LOVES these concepts. So why is Moonlight not held as a top standard of this sort of storytelling? How many of you- at least if you're in the United States- have even watched it?
All the moments Little Chiron (pronounced SHY-roan) had with Juan and Teresa, the way he suffered deeply with his own drug-addicted, tormented mother and his peers, his confusion for his sexuality with Kevin. It warms my heart to see Chiron had SOMEBODY willing to show him kindness, in a world that felt like it had none for him. So often little Black children are abandoned to deal with their own emotions because God forbid they have any. It can fester into anger. But the moment he felt safe, he began to open up.
I loved to see how YES, his mentor Juan (Afro-Cuban!!!) is a drug dealer. However, that does not make him a stereotype- you see how he helps the community around him, how he was willing to pick a severely depressed and scared child from inside an abandoned drug den, feed him, and take him in, teach him how to swim, and began teaching him how to self-actualize. They even sat down and had an open, honest conversation about his sexuality when someone called Chiron a f****t. This was all in the first thirty minutes! The movie is two hours!
So⊠why doesnât Tumblr love and adore this movie? Why doesnât anyone see their queer experience in Chiron? Why doesnât anyone write endless meta? Why donât Chiron and Kevin have endless coffee AUs and fantasy worlds and canon fix-its (not that I would want any of that)? I can give you a hint, but Iâm sure you figured it out.
Precious
TW: incest, sexual assault, parental abuse, ableism
Hard watch. Monique truly portrayed the villain of the year. The novel, Push, was hard too. I didnât fully understand it as a middle schooler when I read it, but walking in as an adult, I realized quickly it was going to be HARD. Anybody who has had traumatic experience with incest or sexual abuse, this movie probably isnât for you.
Precious is from the perspective of Claireece, a dark-skinned, fat Black teenager who struggles with writing, spelling, multiple forms of abuse and PTSD, trying to better her life despite the odds. You want to know how to write this kind of story without being stereotypical? Because hereâs the thing- a lot of people within the story at the beginning treat Precious like a stereotype, like a statistic. But Precious herself is the voice of her diary! You understand how her reality and mentality is warped due to the life sheâs lived! She is the victim! Hers is the voice that is centered! She is not the statistic that they belittle her to be- sheâs human!
Within the first ten minutes of the movie, the principal threatens to suspend Claireece for being pregnant with her second child at 16. âIs there something going on at homeâ- there is OBVIOUSLY something going on at home for this to be a reoccurring situation. Nonetheless, society consistently punishes Claireece for her circumstances. There is always SOMETHING standing in the way- bullies, bills, standardized testing, the social workers, her own parents. Because who would love a fat, dark-skinned, Black girl that canât read? It must be her fault!
And that is not just something that the story tells us to feel- that is something that people genuinely feel already, reflected by the story! Society consistently lets down its most marginalized, blaming them for âbadnessâ, âunworthinessâ. Does that mean that these stories donât deserve to be told? Because they are judged as âbadâ?
Or Preciousâ abuse- some Black children have abusive parents! But her mother is not a bad mother because sheâs Black, and thatâs the part that we have to be able to separate. We see that there are good Black people throughout this story who are trying, in varying levels, to reach her. Claireece herself wants to be a good mother to her children, no matter how they came about.
To be clear: her mother is a terrible person! Anyone that forces their child to eat, blames them for their own sexual abuse and weight gain, calls the child with Down Syndrome born of that abuse âMongoloidâ, doesnât even know her own childâs birthday, and even more Truly Unspeakable things- horrible person!! No question!
But if youâre watching this movie with the expectation that thatâs how Black mothers are (evil welfare queens and bad mothers), or if you are not taking the time to recognize that itâs she herself that is the problem, then that is all youâll perceive! Because I can find a long list of evil white mothers- does that mean we should never discuss those stories? That youâre all terrible?
There is still beauty in the story! Her trauma and her circumstances are not all she is- her multicultural friends at the alternative school get along, they show up for her pregnancy, they write stories! She has a good (lesbian!) Black teacher! Sheâs learning! Her son is born healthy and surrounded with love! She gets her daughter back!
It is not that Claireece was guaranteed to live the life that she had because of who she is, itâs just one story of an infinite amount. But that doesnât mean it doesnât deserve to be understood with dignity. Our stories shouldnât have to be perfect to be told.
A âUniversalâ Perspective
We read White Tears/Brown Scars in #CBC Book Club, so I wonât go into deep details when you can find the quotes and even read it yourself. In short, it is about the insidiousness of White Womanhood and how it actively contributes to white supremacy throughout history while masquerading as a net benefit for all women. I have said before that I donât like watching TV and movies with a white woman as the main character anymore. And I know saying that will have me accused of misogyny. However, it works for the example Iâm about to explain.
The reality is, Iâve spent my entire life watching things from the perspective of white women. Iâve been told that this perspective is something I need to prioritize as much as my own, that this perspective is a sign of my own power and presence. And frankly, while I have been able to enjoy it, Iâve grown to realize that this perspective is often in conflict with what I have known to be... Well, white women. I have been told my entire life that yâall represent the underdog, the victim, the one that has to rise up above, girl boss girl power. And that makes sense... From a misogyny perspective!
But from a race perspective... the way I see white women portrayed is not the experience that I have had. They are not powerless, they are not the underdog, they are not the one that needs the come up, very often they have been the actual antagonists when it comes to women and people of color! You have not been forced to see my experience the way I have been forced to live through yours. And I donât enjoy doing that as much anymore, especially when I also have to consider it in real life, the way mine... Wonât be.
And yet, that experience hasnât stopped me from objectively understanding a white female character when a story is told. I donât see an image of one âbadâ white woman on screen and assume âwell, this must be what the expectation for real life white women isâ. Because Iâve interacted with real life white women and know they can do and be a whole of things. So why is that mentality not respected in kind? Why is that not something that white and nonblack people can do for us, and our stories?
Literally Policed Emotions
As I explained earlier, one of the most powerful tools in white supremacyâs tool belt was treating our emotions as invalid, as dangerous, as threatening. By constantly making us question our voices, question even using them, it is bullying everyone into being silent about their systemic abuse.
So I asked my Black viewers these questions, and I found a couple interesting patterns amongst the responses. One of them was that a lot of people would claim that they werenât being policed... Before proceeding to describe the obvious policing of their emotions. And itâs sad, in a way, that itâs so normalized to close oneself up in anticipation of poor treatment that we donât see that!
âIf I donât do something wrong, this person wonât hit me.â That is a quote of someone being abused, dear! The fear or concern to emote didnât come from you naturally being afraid- if you were worried about experiencing what others are experiencing for emoting while Black, THAT is a part of being policed!
Just like policing in real life. The police presence isnât just active, itâs the threat of being harmed. The threat of their existence, of knowing what would happen if you went against âthe rulesâ. Of what would happen if they were called. If you walked into a room and knew you wouldnât be accepted for yourself without conflict and therefore did not try... If you hid who you were to avoid problems⊠I would call that policing!
For those who are nonblack reading this: knowing that Black people are often hiding their full range of emotions from you⊠how does that make you feel? Do you want them to show those emotions? Are you willing to accept the discomfort that may come with them expressing them openly? Are you safe?
Offering Grace
When we were playing South of Midnight, I noticed how frustrated with Hazel my husband got during one of the chapters. And to be fair, she was deeply incorrect and willfully blind, and it had devastating consequences! The chapter was meant to be that moment of failure for Hazel, of a deep miscalculation on her end! Every hero is meant to have one!
The thing is... She is a child. She is allowed to be wrong. We are allowed to be wrong in the narrative! Especially Black girls and women, God knows thereâs a higher expectation for us to either always be right or let down the entirety of what is ârequiredâ for us to be respected. We are expected to carry heavy weight and NEVER express upset with any of it- which, ironically enough, was a major part of Lacey and Laurentâs- Hazelâs mother and her ex- story! Emotions and dealing with them is a major theme of the game!
Disconcerted, I discussed the bias with him. That we have to be willing to allow Black characters to be wrong, to go through the traumas, to lash out, to misunderstand, to go through the messiness of the human experience. We donât have to like what they do, but we cannot expect them... To never do it.
We especially cannot judge them for doing so on a different level that we do their nonblack counterparts... And that happens a lot! I cannot stand the Precocious White Girl character, where she ends up hurting those she loves thinking sheâs in the right, and the narrative, if not outright agreeing, offers her the grace to fix it. Not because she doesnât deserve the chance, but because I envy the opportunity to do so.
Hazel gets the chance to redeem herself, to grow, to do better in the next chapter, and it was so nice.
But Iâm always asking people to remember that the same way everyone else gets to have a moment of weakness, of wrong, of confusion... Allow Black characters, Black people, that grace! Our entire image should not fall apart just because you were- however consciously or not- looking for a reason not to care about us. Stories would be pretty boring if everyone was always happy and always correct all the time! If we only told stories where everyone did everything right, we wouldnât have a lot of myths, legends, and fairy tales!
Treat People The Way You/They Wanna Be Treated
This first one is one we all learned in like... Second grade. âGolden ruleâ. The goal was to teach us empathy. And I can tell that, in the Internet age, we are all deeply lacking in it. If you wouldnât want someone to judge you at your lowest moment- especially when it isnât a reflection of you, but of your stress in the circumstances- maybe you should take the time to consider that for others.
And no, Iâm not saying that the response with every emotion is valid. Obviously not. However, thereâs a difference between someone being a horrible person consistently through their actions, and someone having a horrible day and responding poorly, and you thinking this must mean that they are a horrible person. Remember what I said about the stereotypes- is your character an Angry Black Woman, or is she a Black woman that is angry? Because Black women are allowed to be angry! Is your character a Hypersexualized Mandingo, or is he a Black man with a high sexual libido? Because Black men are allowed to like having a lot of sex!
Sometimes theyâre not even horrible characters, the crowd just doesnât like them đ and it would be a lot easier if we just SAID that, instead of trying to apply some sort of âmoral failingâ to them. Especially because that dislike, circling back around, often is held from a place of bias. Anyway, Iâm asking you to practice empathy, but more importantly, Iâm asking you to practice emotional intelligence towards Black people. Be able to identify your own emotions and recognize when youâre being less gracious towards us. This is a skillset that will benefit you in your life as a whole.
Move to Innocence/Right to Comfort
This section is going to upset a lot of you, and Iâm asking you to sit with that discomfort. As a segue from the last section, consider this: how often do you find yourself going âBut maybe/but what if they-â when someone mentions something is racist? Or âIâve never seen this before!â
Why?
Why is your first reaction to counter, or deny, what is happening? Or to stand in awe as if this is so new? Why is it not empathy and an attempt to understand the situation from their perspective? Do you understand how that shows a lack of concern for the Black person, prioritizing your own feelings and that of the person who harmed them?
Move to Innocence: "The term white innocence in the critical race, critical whiteness, and Social Justice literature usually reflects the idea that white people, in that they experience the privilege of dominant racial status in a white-dominant society, are generally naive about the realities of race and racism, particularly in systemic and structural senses. In particular, they are afforded the luxury (deemed a privilege) of not having to engage with race or racism unless they choose to do so intentionally (see also, antiracism). As critical race educator Robin DiAngelo points out (above), white innocence reflects the idea that âracism is not a white problem.â"
I am of the belief that this sort of response is a way to deflect harm from the self. It is not because you care about that person, but because if THEY are racist, it might mean that YOU are racist- if you do or have potentially done this behavior before. And rather than allow that to sit, and then respond with âI will work on changing my behaviorâ, it is a self-defense mechanism to fight against it, because you are Good and would not do that, and would want someone to defend you if this happened.
The problem here, is that weâre finally showing empathy⊠for the wrong party! You are pulling out the very skills asked of you to listen to Black voices, to defend those that harm us! This isnât me saying that Black people canât be wrong. But if you find yourself fighting against our words far more often than you do standing with us⊠well, the pattern of actions is not avoidable.
Or sometimes, you get the more well-intentioned but sometimes still damaging âyeah this happened to me as a [some other marginalized identity]â.
Right to Comfort: Essentially the idea that any conversation, particularly about racism, should be done in a way that never makes anyone uncomfortable. Which is not possible, because discussing race is always going to be uncomfortable for someone who doesnât to discuss it. That white people are entitled to comfort at all times, that if something interferes with that comfort, it must be an attack on their rights. It is a core tenet of why Black emotions and perspective upset everyone.
The response itself is not always a bad thing, and yes, it is done as a way to empathize. But again, I often feel like this is an unconscious tactic to maintain oneâs own comfort and place in the conversation that they were not involved in. In order to not feel uncomfortable, to sit with the idea that someone like me harmed you, that I need to make sure that I do not do these things to you and others⊠it centers that âoh, Iâve gone through this similar thing, so I am safe and understand completelyâ when that is just⊠not true. It is not some automatic guarantee of your allyship.
It is so hard to find space to express yourself and your disappointments when it comes to Blackness. Sometimes what we need is the space to be heard, to vent, to be the center of care for once. Itâs not a reflection of YOU, or that YOUR experiences donât matter; itâs just what THEY need. Treat us the way WE want to be treated.
BTW, I know what Iâve cited here is from the perspective of white supremacy, but keep in mind that one doesnât have to be white to participate in white supremacy. We ALL gotta work on these things! Purposely stopping yourself from making their experience about you and how you feel about it is an action you can take, to practice being a better ally. Sometimes, I would like to be the one that receives care without having to give it back!
Conclusion
Everything you feel, I FEEL! In addition to that, I have to deal with everything else affecting why I am and am not âallowedâ to feel! Why would that be hard to understand? Why would that be hard to sympathize with? You might not understand it from a âBlackâ perspective, but you can understand feelings. You can understand why things would cause joy, cause pain. Do you actually want to, is the question. Do you actually want to understand Black emotions and the Black perspective, at the risk of it conflicting with your own?
If nothing else, this one lesson is the one that guarantees bettering your relationship with Black peers. It is the easiest and most palpable action you can take to make us feel safe around you... To actually CARE and allow us to feel. Because itâs the thought that counts, but the action that delivers.
its all 'be gay do crime' until a black person starts making allusions to drugs or sex or god forbid VIOLENCE and then it turns out nobody can handle anything more hardcore than downloading illegal torrents of hamilton
This post is about racism. This post is about racism and antiblackness. This post is not about how cool YOU are for doing crimes or about how much you hate 'antis' or how bad tesla sucks. This post is about how ostensibly progressive white people will clutch pearls and moralize about not listening to rap or engaging with black art or culture because it seemingly condones drugs, or violence, or is overly sexual, while having no issue with those topics in other, non-black contexts. There are conversations to be had about the topics surrounding this but in the meantime the original post is One Sentence and I'm not convinced most of the commenters in the past few days even read it.
"Moonlight is a story that, for all intents and purposes, Tumblr should have loved. Angst, gay, bad parenting and seeking forgiveness, found family and mentorship, discovering sexuality while being in love with the straight best friend, compulsory heterosexuality, the homoeroticism of the trials of boyhood, vengeance on the childhood bully, reconciliation, touch starvation and yearning... Tumblr LOVES these concepts. So why is Moonlight not held as a top standard of this sort of storytelling? How many of you- at least if you're in the United States- have even watched it?"
Want to hear more? Click to go to my LATEST LESSON: "The Advantages of Being Quiet": The Policing of Black Emotions!
And if you're new here- because we have a lot of new folk since the last I dropped a lesson- YES my lessons are long. YES they take time to read. NO, you cannot learn about the Entirety of the Black Experience in ten minutes. đ€·đŸââïž Educating yourself is up to you and on your own time!
Please keep interacting with this post because when I come to tumblr to procrastinate, this shows up again in my notifications and guilts me into writing again
at some point in your life you are going to do or say something racist, sexist, or otherwise bigoted. Your goal is not perfection, your goal is to be the kind of person that the people you've hurt feel safe being honest with when that happens.
since people keep adding this kind of stuff in the notes: no, self-flagellating and making a big show of apologizing and "doing better" is extremely not the same thing as making people feel safe about telling you when you've been shitty. in fact, doing so is in many ways anathema to it.