[we need a little glamour & glamour arrives: Cracker-noun [krak-er] ]
Recorded to be coined in 1766 in U.S South from a Scottish word Cf. L. crepare meaning “To rattle,crack,or creak” with a secondary figurative sense of “Boast of,prattle,make ado about.”
In it’s modern usage, “Cracker” comes from slave foremen in the antebellum South who…
Here’s what you need to realise about anti-racism: It’s not about you. It’s not about your feelings as a white person. What you just said is that you’ll entertain the idea of listening to POC talk about ways they’ve been fucked over by whiteness, white privilege, and white people as long as they don’t hurt your feelings.
To put it another way: you’re saying that not having your feelings hurt is more important to you than actually trying to understand PoC’s experiences of enduring racism—which is, itself, perpetuating racism. No, maybe you didn’t partake in whatever act of racism we’re talking about in this very moment, but if you’re white, then you are benefiting from the systemic racism that allowed it to happen, whether you like it or not.
Yes, listening to the ways that your privilege fucks over other people is uncomfortable. Yes, it can be embarrassing & lead to feelings of guilt, but it is not up to People of Color to censor ourselves to spare your delicate fee-fees. If you truly want to be considered anti-racist, you need to deal with those feelings with other white people & not add to the burden of PoC’s experiences of racism by saying that you won’t take us seriously unless we’re ‘nice’ about the emotional & psychological violence that we endure simply by being PoC in a racist society.
So literally, all I want you to do is understand that being anti-oppression (of any kind) is about understanding how the oppressed group is affected & then countering those systems, activities, mindsets, etc. It’s not about you being comfortable, because if you’re doing it right, it’s not going to be comfortable.
"["Dumb" Things White People Say: Race affects Queerness.]
“RACE AFFECTS QUEERNESS ALWAYS..”
HELL YES to all of this.
So once upon a time, I knew a fair few white trans people. I does not talk to them anymore.
White people don’t realize how race affects queerness.
It doesn’t just affect one’s money, and one’s ability to receive a doctor that will actually help them (seriously white trans people, if you think it’s hard for YOU to get what YOU need, now imagine being brown and trying to get all that. Yeah. It’s compounding effect of ‘ew darkie’ and ‘ew trans!’)
I spoke to ONE therapist about it. That alone made me not want to ever talk about it again. For the rest of my life, that’s how bad it was. There is nothing that makes me skeeve more than kind condescension and this bitch was the kindest nastiest son of a dick I’ve ever had the displeasure to have to listen to for a half hour session about shit that don’t even affect her life. And she’s white, so that had a delightful added racism bonus.
It affects how I can deal with it. My connection to black women will never be eradicated. For me in particular, I cannot but identify with black women even though I get pissy at situations outside of racial references when someone calls me one. As my identity outside of my AAB gender solidifies and becomes more clear, and distances from “woman” by itself, there will always be a place in me to identify as a “black woman”. Always.
BUT THAT DOESN’T CHANGE MY GENDER. That is just a PART of how my gender formed based in the treatment of my race.
It affects my DESIRE to transition. I don’t want to deal with more fear than I already deal with. People are pretty much already looking for any reason they can to attack black men and women. I live my life avoiding ANYONE I don’t know that I perceive to be a man out of abject fear of shit going down. That is bad enough for me. My desire to present properly is far, far, faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar inferior to my fear. That is not true for some black people, and that is amazing and beautiful and wonderful. But for me? Fuck no. I already live in a part of NY where white people stare at me for daring to be black and in their space (unless I am carrying what they perceive to be expensive designer animals, my cat or my dog, in which case “I must be rich enough to be one of the civilised negroes” so they’re comfortable talking to me like a human being), and black people stare at me for “being so white” and “using big words”. I cannot take anymore.
That’s my right. That’s my decision.
There are other, non-racial things that come into play, but RACE. AFFECTS. QUEERNESS. Always.
It doesn’t just affect one’s money, and one’s ability to receive a doctor that will actually help them (seriously white trans people, if you think…
