biyuti:

queernonymoose:

biyuti:

Seriously.

Many of us TPoC have essentially washed our hands of the trans* community because of its glaring whiteness problem.

And I want something else to call us and name or identity that will allows us a short form of recognizing each other and where we stand with this (something beyond the more individual labels… I guess we TPoC umbrella term that isn’t trans*)

And I want it to be similar to womanism (how womanism states straight up that women of colour will stand with men of colour).

Similarly, I want a TPoC movement that makes it clear that I will stand with cis people of colour. And that I will stand with them before I stand with any white trans* person.

I want a movement of trans* and gender variant people of colour that focuses on what we need, centres our voices, and essentially side steps the issue of being included in the trans* movement.

Because I really do not see the point in seeking inclusion in a movement that can only remember that we exist when they want to elevate themselves on our dead.

I want to stop using the word ‘trans’ (not that I use it all that much) and I want something else that we can use.

Suggestions?

Criticisms?

Is having our own umbrella term even desirable?

I know as a trans* MOC it’s totally not my place to really say how a decision goes or not, but I think a few other TPOC (specifically trans* women of color) might see this so hence why I am reblogging.

As far as I’m concerned, I don’t see why you can’t have some say.

Like, I think we all recognize that trans women of colour or trans feminine PoC totally have the biggest needs in this regards…

But I want something trans men and/or trans masculine people of colour will use too.

Bolding is mine because this isn’t quite a conversation for me to butt in on, but I have seen the trend that narratives of being queer or especially being trans are doomed and tragic, and I want to find more ways of celebrating queer/genderqueer/trans POC for having narratives of getting through hardships and being awesome.

I am excited for any politics of people of color liberation that centers marginalized genders. I don’t really get down with anything less.

(via a-bayani)

crankyskirt:

Deadline: 1 August 2012

Nearly There: A Queer POC Zine

What: Nearly There is a zine project meant to address the serious absence and silencing of stories about the experiences of queer people of color. For those of us who occupy the spaces of both queer and of color (along…

squishysound:

dumbthingswhitepplsay:

readnfight:

Every time I mention that queer spaces are not automatically anti-racist spaces, someone unfollows me.

But also, somewhere, a queer black angel gets hir wings, so…

Sayin it again for the haters.

Question, are they more or less likely to be racist compared to the real world?

No.

As in, I would say that no, they are neither more nor less likely to be racist. Does the annihilation of racism happen just by chance? No, so why would a space or project or whatever stand a better chance of being anti-racist without putting in any work toward it, just because it analyzes something else?

I had a gruelling conversation with a white cis dude anarchist a while back where I was trying to convince him that in my experience, white anarchists and white non-anarchists end up being just about equally racist, at least til the anarchists decide to work really really really really fucking hard not to be, and even then probably still are. You can’t say “I’m radical” or “I’m queer” and suddenly that work is done. The difference is in the vocab people use though; this anarchist dude, and many others that I know, wasn’t putting in any real work on undoing his own racism or supporting people of color, but knew the right vocab to use to sound totally nonracist.

So that’s my long answer; my short answer is nope.

Every time I mention that queer spaces are not automatically anti-racist spaces, someone unfollows me.

But also, somewhere, a queer black angel gets hir wings, so…

tranqualizer:

I don’t experience race separate from being queer, I don’t experience race separate from being trans, I don’t experience being immigrant separate from being viet or queer or trans, I don’t experience class separate from being immigrant, viet, queer, or trans. So if a self-proclaimed queer space isn’t also a space to talk about race, class, ethnicity and other aspects of my identity then it isn’t a queer space. For the love of the trees, being queer ain’t always about who I’m fucking or who I’m drawing hearts for. If that’s the case for you, then there are some serious considerations about yourself that you need to make in the context of power, prejudice, and privilege.

AMEN. If you can compartmentalize these things, good for you. Don’t expect this to be the same for all of us.

What use is a queer space that is also a gentrifying space? What use is a queer space where people are saying, “I don’t spend time in communities of color because they’re more homophobic”? What use is a queer space where you cannot talk honestly about your experiences as a queer person of color, but are expected to listen to everyone else’s experiences as queer white people? What use is a queer space where you are trying to talk about navigating your culture as a queer POC, and white queers are flippantly responding with “fuck culture”? What use is a queer space that doesn’t question white beauty ideals? What use is a queer space with no interest in understanding the increased dangers poor or homeless queer and trans people face? What use is a queer space that doesn’t assume it can ally itself with POC communities?

I have entered all of those spaces, and left pretty quickly in each case. That sort of short-sighted white-centrism isn’t even productive, let alone a good space for me to be in, or one that I would bring people in to. What is the point in being this shallow in your understanding of the world around you?

dahmermaid:

skirtingtheline:

dahmermaid:

hupsoonheng:

warrenpeas:

feral-femme:

so-treu:

readnfight:

feral-femme:

But no you have to be nice to them!

Otherwise you’re being MEAN AND BIGOTED

MAKING THEM FEEL BAD FOR BEING WHITE by pointing out their privilege

Why would you do that?

What, you don’t feel that white people have to be nice to POCs, otherwise we’re mean and bigoted? Because that’s exactly what we do have to be. It doesn’t matter how rotten a POC is to someone who’s white, or has been in the past. If we’re not nice it’s likely to be presumed that we’re racist pigs. Or so I have always felt.

Just for the record, I always try to be nice to EVERYbody, regardless of what they look like or even act like. Which is what non-racist people would do. So what the fuck is the harm in being nice to white people? Hatred, prejudice, and discrimination are never okay, no matter what your skin color is.

Guys, if this many white people don’t have a fucking clue what’s going on, it’s clear they haven’t actually been educated about it, even though you clearly think they OBVIOUSLY must have been. And, yeah, you can totally blow them off if you want to. Or you could actually try to get them to understand your point of view. I personally had to practically bash my head into brick walls trying to find someone who’d explain this stuff to me when I didn’t get it. I come from a very different national and cultural perspective, as I am not American, so it fucking makes sense that I didn’t get it. Maybe there are also reasons why other white people don’t get it.

I don’t make mass assumptions about POCs, and I’d really love it if they didn’t do the same to me. But apparently on Tumblr that’s never going to happen. *sigh*

You know, I could have been nice to you

but then you made words.

Such as:

If we’re not nice it’s likely to be presumed that we’re racist pigs. Or so I have always felt.

So you’re basing your opinion of other people on your feelings? What? Is that even reasonable?

So what the fuck is the harm in being nice to white people?

Because it’s frustrating being nice over and over and the nice gets nowhere and then when you start getting angry people don’t even understand it because you were so nice! The harm is that nice doesn’t often work.

I am not American, so it fucking makes sense that I didn’t get it.

I am not American so it fucking makes sense that I expect you to get it.

I don’t make mass assumptions about POCs, and I’d really love it if they didn’t do the same to me. But apparently on Tumblr that’s never going to happen. *sigh*

That sound is my eyes rolling.

In summary I prefer to say LOOK AT THEM AND LAUGH

Two very strange things showing up here. First, is this the case that white people, by and large, are making this much of an effort to be nice to people of color, that it is this emotionally involved for you all? I’ve never been aware of that being some kind of mass movement of niceness that you are this entrenched in. So either that’s an exaggeration, or y’all are failing pretty badly at it. Or some combination, but there isn’t much of a good track record of how important it is for white people to treat people of color well.

Second, I demand more than niceness. Yeah, I’m one of them uppity bitches that wants to be respected, listened to, seen as fully human. I don’t give a shit about cordiality if there’s nothing else behind it. I saw that shit in college, all the trust fund kids who wanted to be super polite to me, their first black “friend”…but weren’t willing to put in anymore than that. I see right through niceness and it don’t mean shit on its own.

Once again, a conversation about queer & trans POC needing space within queer organizing has turned into how hard it is to be white in this day & age. Coool.

Oh and PS: “non-racist” people are pretty much like unicorns: if they existed I’d wanna play with them all day, but instead I live in the cruel real world.

nuestrahermana:

Check out that link! QPOC Lit for the win.

BLESS YOUR HEART.

Amy Sueyoshi, “Inequality in the Marriage Equality Movement”

Found via Against Equality. Doing zine research!

(via readnfight)

But marriage equality would potentially solve the immigration and health care issues.  Racism and hate crimes are a whole other animal…

(via gretchensaidso)

Gay marriage only solves health care if one partner already has insurance, which many people do not. Gay marriage doesn’t give us universal health care, or even change the health care system which is deeply flawed. So, it’s only a solution for some individuals, not for everyone. Similarly with immigration, it’s only a solution if one person is on track to become a legal immigrant; it does nothing to change the immigration system, which is flawed and based on racism and xenophobia. A movement for liberation, and not just increased rights for some individuals, needs to be based on the idea that everyone marginalized deserves a free, healthy, and safe life—everyone, not just some individuals. This is where queer liberation became watered down into gay rights. Rights are based more on laws and which government administration is currently in power, and therefore can be revoked—liberation cannot.

The queer liberation movement was once a movement that depended on the inclusion of people further marginalized within the umbrella of queerness, like is mentioned in the quote above. It is really interesting, although also pretty sad, to study the trajectory of this shift from demanding liberation to asking for individuals’ rights.

(via becausegretchensaidso)

crunkfeministcollective:

*Femmes Of Color Symposium Keynote Speech, Oakland, CA (8/21/11) Good afternoon, and thank you for having me.  It is lovely to be here with you all.  Thank you to the symposium organizers who have asked me to be here and … Continue reading →

“Because we all do it.  We all run from the ugly. And the farther we run from it, the more we stigmatize it and the more power we give beauty.  Our communities are obsessed with being beautiful and gorgeous and hot.  What would it mean if we were ugly?  What would it mean if we didn’t run from our own ugliness or each other’s?   How do we take the sting out of “ugly?”  What would it mean to acknowledge our ugliness for all it has given us, how it has shaped our brilliance and taught us about how we never want to make anyone else feel?  What would it take for us to be able to risk being ugly, in whatever that means for us.  What would happen if we stopped apologizing for our ugly, stopped being ashamed of it?  What if we let go of being beautiful, stopped chasing “pretty,” stopped sucking in and shrinking and spending enormous amounts of money and time on things that don’t make us magnificent? “

Reading the whole thing. I love this. My mom stressed out when I told her a couple months ago I wasn’t pretty and didn’t want to be, and that it didn’t bother me at all; so she called me handsome, which was pretty cute.

(via bettacomecorrect)

Amy Sueyoshi, “Inequality in the Marriage Equality Movement”

Found via Against Equality. Doing zine research!

elfstaranymore:

Look, I certainly don’t want anyone to be put to death for being gay in any country. And if there’s something to be done to stop that, of course I’m in favor of it.

But can we please stop assuming that we as Westerners can look at the actions of an African government, decide that we don’t like them, and change them in one fell swoop just by saying “Hey Uganda, we don’t like this.” Can we stop assuming that as Westerners we get to go “Hey, we’re Westerners, and many of us are American, and many of us are white, and that means we get to decide how your country is governed even though most of us don’t know where it is located on a map, let alone the first thing about your culture or your economy or what type of government you even have”? Can we stop assuming that because we in our privilege have troubled ourselves to sign an internet petition, the ruling classes in nations that most of us know nothing about should bow to our will? Because until we stop assuming these things, we will not be able to even begin to grasp the complexity of how institutionalized [queer hate] works on a global scale. And only when we begin to grasp that complexity will we have even the tiniest hope of doing anything about it.

The anti-gay laws passed in Uganda over the last 2 years were largely lobbied for by Americans, though. My understanding was always that part of why Americans would work on overturning those laws is that Americans were responsible for passing those laws, for going and meddling in other people’s lives and relying on all the above-mentioned privileges.

Here is a post I remember reading when this first made news, on Black Looks:

Political Research Associates have published an in depth report on the role played by right wing US religious organisations in encouraging homophobia in Uganda. The report “Globalizing the Culture Wars: US Conservatives, African Churches, and Homophobia.” was written by pastor Kapya Kaoma of Zambia. The story starts with a meeting last March in Kampala where two Americans were presenting – Scott Lively and Dan Schmierer of the ex-gay group Exodus International and was attended by Ugandan politicians, business men and religious leaders. However as Kaoma points out these are just two of many who are exporting their hate – what he calls “culture wars” to Africa. In other words they are taking their war against an organised ‘LGBTI movement in the US to those countries where activists and their allies are few and less organised at this moment. Why Africa? Possibly because just under half of the Anglican church’s 77 million live in Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya- even if fewer than half of the continent are Christian – with a population of 900 million that still means there are possibly 300 million, plus a great deal of money to be made by all. They would also have political influence and the prospect of increasing their allies in the battle over gay clergy, abortion rights and so on. I would also add using the church, were blind faith to the church and it’s leaders is as strong as it is to God, is also an extremely clever strategy in depoliticising people and keeping control over every aspect of peoples lives.

Black Looks covered this issue a lot about a year ago, so I recommend reading through their archive.

(via jhameia)

brownroundboi:

at another book reading, where four of us, all so different and
in many ways breathing the same air were given a question:

why do you think you are still here? is it because of your resilience?
do you think resilience is hereditary?

before that she says, 1 out of 10 of us never make it out….

 This entire thing is amazing. Especially:

this understanding, this resilience theory,  that i got something you ain’t got. that i, by the almighty volition of self, pulled myself up by the sneakers and did something, pushed myself extra, deserved, somehow by blood, i am sitting in front of you about to peel get some warm dinner and walk slowly in the ice, eventually to my own front door, to my own floor, to my own bed, fix up some tea in my own kitchen that i never feel i truly deserve. that tape is the same mix playing inside the immigrant ear i think, the child of the immigrant, who is never welcome here, who has to be crafty as fuck, to somehow uplift themselves in this system that never meant for us to exist. 

dancingonembers:

• Indigenous LGBTQ/Two Spirit People
• Two Spirit Films
• Native LGBTQ Hate Crime Murders
• Digital Library
• Two-Spirit Collections
• Stereotypes

(via dancingonembers-deactivated2011)