After all, it was drag queens, Black drag queens, who fought the police at the famous Stonewall Inn rebellion in 1969. Years later, a group of nouveau-respectable gays tried to construct a memorial to Stonewall in the park across from the old bar. The piece consisted to two white clone-like thin gay men and two white, young lesbians with perfect noses. They were made of a plaster-like sustance, pasty and white as the people who paid for it. Some of us were furious. Chris called together all of the black gay and lesbian groups in the city and Feminist News for involved in the fight for a full color statue of a black drag queen throwing a brick at a cop. We didn’t get it, and frankly, I’d rather have nothing. At least that way you know what you’ve got.– Sarah Schulman, The Sophie Horowitz Story (via Hugh Ryan)
She wrote this in 1984.
These people don’t even surprise me anymore
oppression
On May 29, 2014, the issue of timemagazine magazine which proclaimed the “Transgender Tipping Point” was revealed with me on the cover. June 1, 2015 a year and 3 days later, Caitlyn Jenner’s vanityfair cover was revealed proclaiming #CallMeCaitlyn
I am so moved by all the love and support Caitlyn is receiving. It feels like a new day, indeed, when a trans person can present her authentic self to the world for the first time and be celebrated for it so universally.
Many have commented on how gorgeous Caitlyn looks in her photos, how she is “slaying for the Gods.” I must echo these comments in the vernacular, “Yasss Gawd! Werk Caitlyn! Get it!”
But this has made me reflect critically on my own desires to ‘work a photo shoot’, to serve up various forms of glamour, power, sexiness, body affirming, racially empowering images of the various sides of my black, trans womanhood.
I love working a photo shoot and creating inspiring images for my fans, for the world and above all for myself. But I also hope that it is my talent, my intelligence, my heart and spirit that most captivate, inspire, move and encourage folks to think more critically about the world around them.
Yes, Caitlyn looks amazing and is beautiful but what I think is most beautiful about her is her heart and soul, the ways she has allowed the world into her vulnerabilities. The love and devotion she has for her family and that they have for her. Her courage to move past denial into her truth so publicly. These things are beyond beautiful to me.
A year ago when my Time magazine cover came out I saw posts from many trans folks saying that I am “drop dead gorgeous” and that that doesn’t represent most trans people. (It was news to be that I am drop dead gorgeous but I’ll certainly take it). But what I think they meant is that in certain lighting, at certain angles I am able to embody certain cisnormative beauty standards. Now, there are many trans folks because of genetics and/or lack of material access who will never be able to embody these standards. More importantly many trans folks don’t want to embody them and we shouldn’t have to to be seen as ourselves and respected as ourselves . It is important to note that these standards are also infomed by race, class and ability among other intersections.
I have always been aware that I can never represent all trans people. No one or two or three trans people can. This is why we need diverse media representstions of trans folks to multiply trans narratives in the media and depict our beautiful diversities.
I started #TransIsBeautiful as a way to celebrate all those things that make trans folks uniquely trans, those things that don’t necessarily align with cisnormative beauty standards. For me it is necessary everyday to celebrate every aspect of myself especially those things about myself that don’t align with other people’s ideas about what is beautiful. #TransIsBeautiful is about, whether you’re trans or not, celebrating all those things that make us uniquely ourselves.
Most trans folks don’t have the privileges Caitlyn and I have now have. It is those trans folks we must continue to lift up, get them access to healthcare, jobs, housing, safe streets, safe schools and homes for our young people. We must lift up the stories of those most at risk, statistically trans people of color who are poor and working class.
I have hoped over the past few years that the incredible love I have received from the public can translate to the lives of all trans folks. Trans folks of all races, gender expressions, ability, sexual orientations, classes, immigration status, employment status, transition status, genital status etc.. I hope, as I know Caitlyn does, that the love she is receiving can translate into changing hearts and minds about who all trans people are as well as shifting public policies to fully support the lives and well being of all of us.
The struggle continues…
until native americans roll up into europe and start taking things at their leisure, you can’t tell me it goes both ways.
until puerto rican doctors start sterilizing white women, you can’t tell me it goes both ways.
until a white “swagged out” justin beiber lookin ass kid in a hoodie gets shot down for dressing like a thug, YOU CAN’T TELL ME IT GOES BOTH WAYS.
Normally people are not radical, normally people are not moving against the system: normally people are just trying to live, to have a bit of romance and to feed their kids. And what people want is to be recognized, to be incorporated. And when we understand that recognition and incorporation are generically anti-Black, then we don’t typically pick up the gun and move against the system, we typically try to find ways to be recognized, to be incorporated, even though that’s impossible. And I think that our language is symptomatic of that when we say that ‘I don’t like police brutality’. Because, here we are saying to the world, to our so-called ‘people of color allies’ and to the white progressives, ‘we’re not going to bring all the Black problems down on you today. If you could just help us with this little thing, I won’t tell you about the whole deal that is going on with us.
Frank Wilderson III, “We’re Trying to Destroy the World” (via animeterrorist)
Of course, not all women of color are sexualized in the same way. For example, while black women are considered lascivious, always consenting and out of control, Latina women are considered exotic or overly sensual and Asian women are considered childish and prude. These particular stereotypes are reinforced through popular culture and pornography (just Google respectively “Asian women,” “black women,” or “Latina women” and then “women” and see what comes up). The common thread here is that nonwhite women’s sexuality is seen as outside the norm of white heterosexuality. It’s therefore something to be uniquely desired, manipulated, exploited, or controlled. Within this rather toxic climate, being a woman of color who’s in touch with her sexuality is an act of resistance. Pushing past the negative media depictions and still finding a healthy, healing, erotic, and functional sexuality is no small feat.
Samhita Mukhopadhyay
(via Micropolis: Funny or Racist?)
In which a white man tries to explain blackface to crissle and she goes all the way off. See her read in all it’s glory at 1:19:00
a real friend picks screenshots that you look good in.
I need to write this WHOLE response down on an index card, carry it around with me to read it at any quiet moment, and memorize every single word so I can regurgitate it’s perfection ad nauseum during every fucked up conversation I have about racism.
on showing pictures of a black professor and a white serial killer Timothy McVeigh to the kids
“They’re too young to understand!”
This is the fault of their parents and any other sick fucks around them. The sad thing is that the “nice man” would kill them in a heartbeat.
This is about more than parenting and “sick fucks.” This is about an environment that constantly reinforces anti-blackness. Every time you turn on the news, a black person is committing a crime. Black guys are the bad guys in movies and on tv. It’s nearly impossible to find positive representation of black people in children’s books and shows unless you’re actively looking for them, which white parents obviously don’t. Our entire society has been conditioning these children to believe that black is bad and white is good. You can even see the black kid internalizing this message, in real time. Racism is an insidious disease that plagues us all.
Nailed it.
do men have resting bitch faces as well or do they not have negative characteristics ascribed to them for putting on a neutral rather than a deliriously happy facial expression
Yes, Black men in majority white spaces do. If I don’t smile every single second of the day my coworkers become in intimidated and start asking me what’s wrong, telling me to smile, make jokes about how I’m trying to be a thug/act hard, why am I angry, etc. And it’s not just white men at my job God FORBID I my large Black ass makes a white girl feel threaten because I’m sitting down with a neutral expression.
I’m not trying to take this post away from women and make it about Black men but I want to point out that wether it’s patriarchy or white supremacy; those who feel as if they have power over you HATE to see you not smile. They are so used to people like you smiling to gain their approval that when you don’t there’s a cognitive dissonance that makes them extremely uncomfortable.
That’s why “angry Black women” is a thing. They have to put on a smile for everyone (yes even feminist white women) or we all get uncomfortable.
This is some excellent commentary.
reblogging again because the second response is so perf.
They are so used to people like you smiling to gain their approval that when you don’t there’s a cognitive dissonance that makes them extremely uncomfortable.
Wow if only
racism didn’t existI was Khloe Kardashian, then I would have been praised throughout high school for wearing hijab instead of being called terrorist for days and weeks and months living in the South.If only my good friend who had rocks thrown at her for wearing hijab
could just have the privilege of being Khloe.
If only thewomen in France facing anti-veil discrimination could just be Khloe Kardashian.
Habibi Love, man, Habibi Love. Apparently it’s that simple.
Cultural appropriation: the adoption of certain elements (bindi, niqab, etc) of an oppressed people’s culture/practice by a privileged dominant culture, for the purposes of enjoyment (or to appear exotic and “hipster”), and without the adoption of the experiences of racism, oppression, and discrimination that are manifested in those elements for the minority groups.
Cultural appropriation is Khloe being praised for wearing something that Muslim women get abused and discriminated against for wearing on the daily. It is when Khloe wears it for an Instagram post, while Muslim women devotedly choose to wear it to follow their faith, despite the racism and discrimination they (we) face.