Jag orkar inte vara förstående idag, det ska inte vara mitt ansvar att lära (vuxna) människor om deras egna ursprungsbefolkning, om koloniseringen och förtrycket och rasismen. Det är upp till var och en som är vuxen att ta reda på dessa saker, för jag har fått leva med det i hela mitt liv.
Jag har känt mig utanför sedan barnsben, enda sedan lågstadiet var reaktionen kring min bakgrund hård, även om jag inte minns orden så sitter känslan kvar. Jag har varit försiktig så länge att prata helt öppet om det, för jag märker hur fort folk tappar intresset; himlar med ögonen, mumlar något ohörbart till svar, eller helt enkelt säger att “det finns de som har det värre”. Samtidigt förstår jag att det kanske inte är lätt att bemöta - när man nu inte vet någonting. Men är det mitt ansvar att lära ut, verkligen?
Jag har alltid känt mig utanför min egna kultur för att jag inte kan tala mitt egna språk flytande eller använda det i konversationer, jag har känt mig så vilsen vart jag än har befunnit mig och jag har saknat/saknar närheten av andra samiska vänner i min egen åldersgrupp.
Jag är stolt över att vara same, och det har jag alltid varit. Men stoltheten dämpar inte känslan av hjälplöshet, känslan av otillräcklighet och känslan att inte bli tagen på allvar. Jag är utmattad av alla frågor om renar, om att folk enbart vill höra om den “häftiga coola kulturen från fjällen”, för att sedan stänga en ute när man försöker ta upp de problem som staten har försakat oss.
Hur många gånger har jag hört att jag inte är en “riktig same”? Jag vet inte, och även om det en del gånger “bara” varit skämt från vänner, så har det alltid gjort ont - bara bidragit till känslan att aldrig höra hemma någonstans.
och samtidigt som jag känner allt det här, kan jag inte sluta tänka att jag kanske bara överdriver allting.
Du står ikke alene. Du skal få slippe å være forståelsesfull, ikke bare i dag, men alle dager. Du hører til hos oss, det har du alltid gjort.
Du skal slippe å måtte lære ut til alle om du ikke vil.
Seriously, it surprises me that people still don’t get that “whitewashing” doesn’t just mean “taking a character of color and turning them white,” but also applies to “focusing disproportionately on the stories of white people,” “glossing over or altering parts of a story to make it more palatable or make white people look better,” and “treating ‘white’ as the default race”
The fact that Disney churns out film after film after film after film about white people with a maximum of one film per ethnicity that showcases a group other than white people is whitewashing.
The fact that the story of “Pocahontas” (not her real name) has been substantially altered so that some of the white people in that story don’t look like such villains, with John Smith younger and Pocahontas significantly older, as well as recounting a popular myth of her saving John Smith from near-execution (a story John Smith made up to make himself look brave, the real Pocahontas told him to stop telling and hated him for using her to make himself look good, and he started to spread like wildfire after she died because she could no longer object) is whitewashing.
The fact that the characters on “How I Met Your Mother” are all white, and they supposedly live in New York City, but apparently associate exclusively with other white people (with the exception of Wayne Brady, who occasionally visits from out of town, and a recurring taxi driver) is whitewashing.
The fact that the Doctor has now been a white man a full twelve times in a row is whitewashing even though the character’s always been white, because the idea that there’s a character whose entire appearance can change in a matter of seconds, yet ends up white twelve times in a row by pure random chance, implies that white is a neutral default and other races are a deviation from that norm.
The fact that people get really angry at the suggestion that characters like Newt Scamander or Hermione Granger could be black because the books never explicitly say “they are black” is whitewashing.
Because that’s the thing. People often assume that when someone’s race isn’t explicitly specified, they’re white. People insist that Katniss Everdeen must be white because it is possible for them to rationalize that idea in their head. People think of white as “raceless” and every other color or ethnicity as “raced,” and that’s what we call “eurocentrism.”
And that’s the thing about whitewashing. It’s this idea that a “person” is white, and a “person of color” is black or asian or arab or latin@ or whatever they might be.
It’s why people call John Stewart the “Black Green Lantern” but just call Hal Jordan the “Green Lantern.” It’s why Miles Morales is called “Black Spider-man” but Peter Parker is just “Spider-man.” If you want to throw gender into the mix, it’s why Jennifer Walters is the “She-Hulk” but Bruce Banner isn’t the “He-Hulk.”
People think “character” is white and “character + black” is black. There is no default race. Community did a whole episode about how a truly raceless character would look something like this monstrosity:
[Image: A screen cap from Community of two men escorting a human figure dressed to look completely raceless.]
But there’s the tricky part: Once you stop thinking of white characters as “character” and start thinking of them as “character + white,” it becomes really overwhelming how many characters are white.
I mean, I know there’s a kerfuffle over Disney Princesses right now, so let’s look at the list of official Disney Princesses, shall we? That is, let’s look at the list and include everyone’s race, not just the princesses of color:
Snow White + White
Cinderella + White
Aurora + White
Ariel + White
Belle + White
Jasmine + Arab
Pocahontas + Native American
Mulan + Asian
Tiana + Black
Rapunzel + White
Merida + White Soon to be added:
Anna + White
Elsa + White
4 of those 13 women are women of color. All four of those women of color are different races than one another. At the moment, the number of white princesses is seven, but it’s about to go up to nine. All nine of those princesses are the same race as one another, despite a few of them being different nationalities, although most of them hail from Western Europe.
And a lot of people are saying “but they’re just accurately portraying the parts of the world those stories are set in!” First of all, the presence of a person of color has never been implausible in any part of the world, in any period of human history. Hell, a bunch of these movies were set after Shakespeare had born, lived, and died, but he still managed to write a play set centuries earlier featuring a black male lead in Italy.
Second, and most importantly, it’s not like they are being assigned a setting at random and have to accommodate it in their character designs. The people at Disney choose to set film after film after film in France and Germany and Denmark.
It’s not that those areas produce more or better fairy tales and folk tales than any of the other continents, it’s that the stories that come from those areas are the ones Disney considers universal.
In the eyes of Disney, there’s a Princess for Black little girls to look up to, a Princess for Native little girls to look up to, a Princess for Arab little girls to look up to, a Princess for Asian little girls to look up to, and nine princesses for all little girls to look up to. It’s no coincidence that in almost all promotional art featuring the “Princess Lineup,” Jasmine, Tiana, Mulan, and Pocahontas are all standing in the back, usually obscured by other white Princesses’ dresses, while the blonde lady brigade stands in the front.
And that is whitewashing.
might be an older post, but great information here. Please scroll back up and read if you didn’t, especially if you’ve never understood the concept of white-washing.
And side note: you can still enjoy media that white-washes while still calling it out on that fact, and creating an expectation that they should do better.
This is a wonderful, and well thought out post. Great job because so ,so many people do not fully understand just how much this is still happening.
fuckk off why is this the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever seen??
the pope reaffirms his dominance over all the bishops by flaunting his hefty and intricate catalog of church based party tricks. what the media won’t show you was his 15-minute collection plate juggling routine.
it’s really annoying when people pretend Mars is a valid option for colonization as some safety net for fucking up Earth “once earth’s resources become depleted”… Like how badly could we possibly fuck up to where Mars (the giant desert planet with no air) becomes a preferred option.. just Recycle
I’m so glad I’m procrastinating going to bed because if I had gone to bed I wouldn’t be crying laughing at this.
My brother works at Dunkin and his girlfriend works at Tim Hortons and when I found out I said “TWO HOUSEHOLDS BOTH ALIKE IN DIGNITY” and my brother was the only one who knew what I was talking about. Never have I been so proud.
