Black Lives Matter

Gray/any pronouns/feel free to DM!

[sidgenochronicles]

incredible crossover

[genderkoolaid]

[gwensy]

spaceman

[afronerdism]

The conversation surrounding cultural appropriation has been so severely mutilated by white “allies” that the original intention behind that conversation has become almost unrecognizable in most social contexts.

[afronerdism]

To explain what I mean, the conversation around cultural appropriation was started by black and native people to discuss the frustrations we feel at being punished socially and financially for partaking in our cultural heritage while white people could take, I.e. appropriate, aspects of our culture that we are actively shamed for and be heralded as innovators. It was about the frustrations we feel when the same white people who shamed us would take our culture and wear it as if they were the ones who created it while still actively shaming us for doing the same.

The original push behind naming cultural appropriation and having these conversations were so that we as a society could evaluate why we were punished for our heritage while white People were not. It was supposed to be about seeking solutions. The idea was to create a society where we could celebrate our cultures with impunity. It was never about telling white people that they “weren’t allowed” to do certain things. We did ask that white People stop doing certain things because they weren’t doing them respectfully and were not invited to do them, but the primary reason we asked them to desist was to reclaim the things they had stolen and to reassign them culturally back where they belonged.

White “allies” saw these conversations happening and instead of trying to aplify our own voices or even try to learn about the complexities behind why we were saying what we were saying, they instead began screaming over us and creating a narrative that was hardly even the bones of what we originally set out to say. It was like they took the conversation we were trying to have, completely decontextualized it, and stripped it of all it’s nuance in order to gain social currency by seeming progressive.

So the conversation around cultural appropriation went from “This aspect of our heritage belongs to us and we find it egregious that we are shamed for it. What steps can we take to address the racism that’s creating this situation as well as rehome the things that have been stolen” to “you’re not allowed to do that because if you do that you’re racist, we don’t really understand why that’s racist but you’re not allowed to do that and if you do that you’re a klansman no exceptions. So you’re not allowed because because”

At the end of the day, did I like the fact that sally was wearing dreads? No. But my primary concern was not that sally was wearing dreads but rather that sally could wear dreads and I couldn’t. THAT was the intended focus of those conversations. It was about addressing the inequality. It was about us. Now the conversation is just about sally and were completely forgotten.

White People are always asking me what they can do to help. You want to know? Stop talking. Aplify our voices and shut the fuck up because you all have pretty much derailed this conversation and many more like it to the point that we no longer are trying to make steps to understand and dismantle the racism around cultural appropriation and instead are just using it as social shaming tactics.

[afronerdism]

TL;DR: read my post. Most things worth learning about can’t be summarized in the bullet points of a buzfeed article. Don’t come into academic circles and complain because everything hasn’t been conviently summarized for you. Stop pretending that things aren’t accessible to you because you refuse to do the intellectual labor that is learning.

[loredwy]

I cant believe this tweet is how I find out

[would-you-punt-them]

now all the things you guys have told me about american high schools are starting to make sense

[jeaninelatragedia]

holy shit.

[frustratedasatruar]

You're not really supposed to say it this way, because its considered crass, but here in the US children are culturally and legally considered essentially the property of their parents.

Note that its considered more crass to point this out than it is to treat children as property in the first place.

[yiiiiiiiikes25]

i take it back this is an incredible paragraph that should live forever in the paper of record

[yiiiiiiiikes25]

prev DELIGHTFUL tag

[does-this-character-eat-pussy]

Xena the Warrior Princess

Does Xena the Warrior Princess from Xena: Warrior Princess eat pussy?

Yes

No

Remaining time: 5 days 5 hours

[pyrogina]

im fuckin crine he DID IT!!!! 😭

[thefairytaler]

My wife pointed out to me the other day that apparently most people were literally only taught how to say Sorry and not how to Apologize or even that they are different things so here.

If all you ever do is step 1, not only did you not apologize, but people will rightfully stop believing you and start getting pissed or hurt.

[thefairytaler]

Well this breached containment.

And I have learned that of you were not grown up enough for the baby version of this infographic, I should have gone absolutely InfantNewborn style on your brainpans.

[monsterblogging]

Also, what’s your advice for neurodivergent people who have trouble letting go of these IPs? /gen

Speaking from my own experience as an autistic person who can get fixated on things for an extremely long time...

Don't plan on quitting cold turkey. If you start missing it, engage with it privately, like watching movies or reading books you already own, or can get without profiting the creator or boosting some algorithm. Keep discussions to private groups and don't post new art, fics, headcanons, whatever, in public spaces.

Put lots of time into developing your own things and turning your favorite characters into OCs in the meantime. You can start with small changes to the characters at first, then follow your whims and your impulses wherever they go, and maybe experiment with bigger changes until you find what resonates with you. Once you get a bunch of OCs and figure out how they connect to each other and what they all get up to in your thing, it's pretty easy to keep yourself engaged thinking up scenarios for them.

Also, keep checking out new media. It can take awhile to find something that clicks as much as the other thing did, or to find something that scratches the exact right itch. (And sometimes, the media that can scratch the itch is in a completely different genre!)

You might start with media that includes the same actors, or media that has a similar aesthetic. You can also try to look into the author's influences. This help you can satisfy the desire to engage with the thing a bit while you explore new things.

Basically, it's all a process of reducing your engagement with the original thing as much as you can while consciously choosing to develop and explore other stuff. And not everything you try is going to resonate, so you just gotta keep going until you find the stuff that sticks.

[leebrontide]

Younger people, one thing I want you to understand about Millenials is that, overall, our parents taught their daughters to aim for careers and employment, but they didn't teach their sons to keep house. This causes a whole lot of Situations.

[sweaterkittensahoy]

My brothers are my half-brothers; they spent summers and some holidays with us. I love my brothers.

Their mother picked up after them. They were not required to take plates the kitchen or do the dishes or anything like that.

My mother, who would tell you she is for equality, came home one day, sighed at the mess of dirty dishes scattered about, and said, "Gayle, help me pick up."

"Those aren't my dishes," I said. "I picked up my dishes."

My mother sighed again. "Just help me pick up."

"No," I said again. "I didn't make that fucking mess."

She never approached my brothers and said, "Boys, in this house, you take your dishes to the kitchen." She did not tell our dad, "Hey, tell the boys they need to pick up after themselves."

It was, "Gayle, pick up the dishes."

And when I refused because it was not my fucking mess, I got lectured about being difficult.

See also: My brothers--in a classic dick-move of all siblings--figured out they could pop the lock on the bathroom door and throw it open, and I would freak out because I was in the shower and trying to get five fucking minutes of peace.

Guess who got yelled at for being "unreasonable"? Not the boys. Because a lot of moms of millennial boys still said shit like "boys will be boys" when they should have said "Boys, if you got body-slammed on the concrete, I'm not taking you to the hospital."

[gwydionmisha]

It was similar for Xers. I spent a lot of time in my 20's teaching romantic partners and friends basic household skills and having to be really hard ass about them carrying their weight.

It is stupid and infuriating and I hate that the "Boy Mom" trend is setting yet another generation up for unfairness and domestic strife.

[vaspider]

Yep.

[rhincodono]

One time when I was in high school, my mum came home w/ groceries. She needed help bringing all of them in. Did she ask my brother who was already outside playing basketball? No. Did she ask her husband who was sitting on his ass watching TV in the living room? Nope. She walked past both of them, through the house, and into my room where I was doing homework and yelled at me for not immediately coming out to help her.

I have been told that I am "the last of the millennials" or that I'm a "gen zer" or that I'm "on the cusp" by so many different people that I am 100% convinced this is not a generational problem. It is a societal problem. And millennial parents are not immune to raising their kids this way just bc they're younger than x'ers and boomers. Same goes for gen z'ers and every generation after us so long as misogyny remains the bedrock of society that it is.

[rockatanskette]

My parents did a lot to teach my brothers to keep house but the one that sticks with me and drives me a little crazy when it runs up against social expectations is that when we were 13+, everyone was on the dinner rotation. We didn’t have to make anything fancy and we didn’t have to do it alone, but once a week, dinner was our responsibility.

When I tell people this, they always, ALWAYS, assume I have sisters. They say shit like “oh I’d love to do that, but I have boys” and when I tell them I only have brothers, “oh you must have eaten a lot of burned dinners then!”

Like, no. To both of those statements. Sure we burned stuff when we were younger but we all learned to cook before 13, that was just the age where it became a scheduled chore. You know who did burn everything? My MOM. My Boomer dad did all the cooking because my mum didn’t want to and he was the one to help when we needed it, though my mum did help with prep/chopping things.

Fast forward to now, middle brother can make the best risotto I’ve ever had and my youngest brother is vegan and makes almost all his own meals because his partner isn’t and he doesn’t expect her to make two meals so he can eat.

The worst part of this social conditioning is how bullshit it is. I know this is not ingrained, I know people are teaching their sons to be assholes, and I look at my middle brother in his immaculate apartment with tasteful decor that he picked out himself and I look at my youngest brother who does all the clothes shopping for him and his partner because she struggles with it and it makes me want to just start biting people.

Men can be better than this, I GREW UP WITH THEM. I SAW IT. The parenting described above is fucking bullshit and it can be unlearned. My mum’s Russian and my dad’s a Boomer and they unlearned it, which means anybody can.

[madanimalscientist]

Seconding this. All of us got put into the dinner rotation as we got old enough for it. Gender didn't matter - knowing how to feed yourself is a universal thing. My mom is pretty conservative, but she was very clear on that - all of her kids would know how to feed themselves and take turns cooking dinner. But I know it's not as common as it should be - my brother had 3 housemates during college and he was the only one of them who knew any cooking. But the thing is, it totally can be. My siblings are all pretty awesome cooks, but it's because we got started helping young, got taught how to, and then it was made clear that it was expected of all of us to take turns feeding the family, regardless of gender. That was part of being a family.

[midnightssea]

it’s amazing how women are able to navigate crowded rooms without ever touching a palm to a man’s lower back

[quendergeer]

you'd think occasionally men would need to touch other men like this to manoeuvre them out of the way but it never happens

[cassili]

[napoleononthebellerophon]

the amount of lawsuits these exploited children are going to be filing 20 years from now is going to be crazy and im all for it

[owochimuwu]

If you saw me recreationally vaccinating homeschooled children with blow darts then you should be thanking me, no? Relax a little. Blow darts are cool

[owochimuwu]

You are just jealous of my ethical human safari

[krisonthefrontporchwithabeer-de]

"no rapping tonight"

why?

"you rap about the skeletons from undertale everytime, it's embarrassing"

ok

[after one beer]

uh oh y'all i think ive got a virus

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

I need to admit something to the US Tumblrinas. Philadelphia isn't a place to me. It's a cream cheese. You say "philadelphia" or "philly" and I immediately, and exclusively, think of the cream cheese. "Twelve people die in Philadelphia disaster" wow that must've been a Molasses Flood style event

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

No I trust the Americans, the cheese lovers, and the fans of the molasses flood to find this one on their own.

[pinene]

I think feel and talk about tumblr the same way New Yorkers talk about nyc like. Every single cultural moment in the last 15 years has been generated or accelerated by this website and nobody realizes it but us.