Not Everyone’s Laughing At “Shit White Girls Say To Black Girls”
You cannot simply flip the script on these scenarios–exchanging white with black. White and black people have very different experiences in this country. When a college friend told me that I was “cute for a black girl,” her statement had weight. It was spoken to a black woman on a campus with a 2 percent black population, in a state where black people were equally scarce, in a country where race bias is still pervasive. She was speaking in a culture where her own white features were prized and considered beautiful and mine were not. She was speaking to a black woman on a campus where black women often went dateless, because the majority white male population was indifferent to us and the small “of color” male population often was, too. She was speaking to me–a woman who had come of age in the 70s and 80s rarely seeing people who look like me in magazines, on television and film, etc. She was speaking at a time when dark skin and big lips and broad noses and nappy hair were regularly mentioned as insults in school yard fights. She was speaking in a town where there was not one salon that did African American hair and no drug store that carried beauty products geared toward black women. Had I offered that she was “cute for a white girl,” it would have been plenty offensive, but would have different context and far less weight. She had racial privilege; I did not.
The fact is that black people face microaggressions regularly. (And not just in tiny backwaters and Southern towns.) To ask that we not speak about them, or that we focus on “something more important,” is to erase our lived experiences and to ignore the ways the accumulation of little things can add to the weight of racism. In a post on Huffington Post, Ramsey says the video was borne of her personal experiences:
...I always seemed to fall in with the white girls from upper middle class families. I quickly became the “token black girl” in my group, which came with a whole host of awkward questions and first experiences for my peers. Unfortunately, the awkward questions and comments didn’t stop after I graduated from high school. Throughout college and even today, in corporate America, I find myself fielding inappropriate questions and swatting hands away from my waist length dreadlocks.
Over the years I’ve found that dealing with white people faux pas can be tricky. If I get upset, I could quickly be labeled the “angry black girl.” But if I don’t say anything or react too passively, I risk giving friends and acquaintances permission to continue crossing the line. So I decided to create my own parody, “Shit White Girls Say…to Black Girls,” to make all people laugh while, hopefully, opening some eyes and encouraging some of my white friends and acquaintances to think twice before they treat their black friends and associates like petting zoo animals or expect us to be spokespeople for the entire race.
Ramsey did a fine job tackling this issue with humor. Talking about race can be difficult, but talk about it we must, if we want to make any more progress toward equality. The least we can ask of anti-racist friends is that they be willing to sit with the discomfort of analyzing their own racial privilege. That is like the baseline of race work. Anyone who can only talk about that racism over there, but not the bias in their own heart is less ally than part of the problem.
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Let me put it this way, any American minority complaining about privilege might want to double check your perspective. I’ve been in America for only 10 years (I’m 22). I’m originally from Nicaragua, the privileges afforded to you Americans are amazing in comparison to my home country. Even American poor have more than those in Nicaragua, so seeing an article like this and seeing Americans complain just is laughable to me. I’m sorry, but those are the facts here. To me, Americans are the 1% of the world while countries like mine are the 99% of the world. Hell, just look at how much time we all have here to debate trivial nonsense like race.
Your reasoning makes no sense. Lots of people have more or less than others in the world. The fact of the matter is I am from HERE, not another country, and while I have traveled extensively, this is still my home. Are we supposed to just ignore stupidity, ignorance, and discrimination that many encounter everyday just because some place somewhere else has it worse? Please GTFOHWTBS! IF everyone thought that way about everything, the Arab Spring never would have happened because they had better than someone else. Or what about those Latin Revolutions, like the ones in Nicaragua? At the time they had it better than many in Africa, should they have just ignored their issues and problems because someone else in another country had ti worse? I am KNOW for a fact that y’all down in Latin America have your fair share of racial problems too or are those people supposed to just ignore those issues bc people in Afghanistan have less and few privileges than them.
And minority privilege is different from white privilege. We may be able to make YT video about them saying stupid stuff but they control the financial, political, economic, medical, judicial, and educational systems in this country. I would much rather have that privilege than be able to by pass political correctness.
Now, why is that I feel like I’m not missing out on any of that? Oh wait, spoiled American brats. Nevermind.
Spoil? Honey your family came immigrated from Nicaragua, clearly you aren’t lacking either. And if I am spoiled for wanting to have equal access to the system, the my tax dollars finance, in my country, so be it. Maybe you and your country men should start demanding the same.
PS Lemon, you’ve proved my point excruciatingly. We had our problems and still do, but we also don’t marginalize people like you Americans do. We don’t make the melanin content of our flesh a big deal. (And here’s a biological history lesson for you: all humans are from Africa. We are all the same. The only difference is due to our separate evolutionary paths did the melanin content of our flesh begin to either darken or lighten to whatever environ our ancestors flourished and evolved in, so you see race is a huge fallacy that only simple minded folk like the inbred rednecks in the South focus on. So in essence anyone doting on race are just like those poor, misguided, moonshine making Neanderthals).
My father worked hard, saved hard for us to come up here. It wasn’t easy. And you do have access to all of that.
“We had our problems and still do, but we also don’t marginalize people like you Americans do. We don’t make the melanin content of our flesh a big deal.”
Let’s ask some darker Nicaraguans and get their opinion on that. Please stop trying to act brand new like Latin America is above this. Y’all have just as many problems with race, it is just that in many Latin American countries those minorities are likely to be ignored.
And you prove the point of some many reasons of why it is important to discuss these things. We all may be made up from the same stuff but we look different and the way in which we look can determine your access to the system and how you are perceived by society. There is one race, the human race blah, blah, blah. Such and cheap PC “color blind” answer and comment. My race and the way I look influences much of my life in the US, believe me I wish it didn’t but I am not so dense as to pretend like it doesn’t.
Lemon, I understand your fury. It’s due to the idea that I’ve given you facts, but you can’t reconcile with it. Oh well, maybe in time. Until then, keep wallowing in your fabricated victimhood.
I would suggest that it is precisely because you are an immigrant that you do not understand the plight of black America. Being a racial minority does not automatically make you an expert on all matters pertaining to race, and as an immigrant, you have spent comparatively less time in the United States and do not have the necessary life experience under racial oppression to be able to make the kind of determinations you’re making.
To you, these issues may appear to be ‘First World Problems’, but with regards to race in America, and especially in the case of the descendants of black slavery in America, these are issues integral not only to the fabric of the nation in terms of history, but in terms of personal history, to know that when they trace their family tree as far back as they can, they will inevitably hit a point where they come to a dead end where that point is when their ancestors were forcibly enslaved and brought to North America by Spanish and British slave traders, and they can’t trace their roots back to whatever part of Africa their ancestors came from. They can’t name a nation, a culture, a language, none of the things which help define a people as much as skin colour or content of character.
For all that your family left Nicaragua (for whatever reasons) and you have experienced what social problems Nicaraguans face that I do not claim to understand, to state unequivocably that the erasing of black American women from history is wrong, does not in any way minimize your own experience: it is simply a different one. You asserted the idea that every race has some form of privilege, and I don’t disagree there, but so too do I posit that it is possible to view the immigrant experience as one which retains its own privilege, as strange and seemingly contradictory as that may seem.
The traditional view of pioneering immigrants is one of hard work, surmounting great odds (especially in the case of refugees) just to get to a new country, but to face the inevitable xenophobia, racism and insecurity of the local populace who feel threatened by a sudden influx of strangers with different languages, customs, skin colour, foods, etc. not to mention hard-working and willing to work for less pay (since they have to do anything and everything to make ends meet).
But there’s an aspect of the immigrant experience that is often overlooked: no matter what the circumstances which led to leaving their home country to strike out on their own in a new, foreign land, and even where their home country is full of war, famine, strife, etc., an immigrant still knows who they are, and where they came from. The same cannot be said for those who are the descendants of slaves, who had no choice in the matter of being in North America, and whose entire languages, cultures, mores, traditions, histories were effectively taken from them. They’ve had their sense of continuity as a people deprived them, something that has not happened to the immigrant.
In that sense, it is a privilege to be able to know who you are, and where you came from. Those of us who do know it, don’t even realize how lucky we are to have that: we simply take it for granted. As an immigrant to North America and a person of colour, I have experienced my share of racism at the hands of others, and so I can speak to that experience. But I will _never_ know what it’s like not to know where I came from, to not even be able to name a specific country or even a specific part of a continent that I might be from. For all that I haven’t really kept up with my home culture (I came to Canada when I was very young and perhaps to a certain extent internalized the racism I experienced to the point where I rejected my own culture and embraced assimilationism), I realize now that it’s a luxury to be able to say ‘well, I know where I came from, I just didn’t care enough about it to keep up with the language or cultural learning’, because there are so many in North America, not just black Americans but the aboriginal First Nations people as well, who had no choice in the matter of the knowledge, much less retention, of their own language, culture, traditions, mores, histories, etc. because that all was taken from them and their peoples long before they were born.
So yes, while you may be a member of a minority in the United States, and as a person of colour you may have experienced some measure of racial oppression yourself, whether personal or systemic, that does not automatically qualify you to pass judgment or make assumptions about the difficulties experienced by other ethnic minorities in America, but especially on the plight of black America which is very much specific to the United States (and perhaps to a slightly lesser extent in Canada) and to them as a people.
Of course it’s difficult to understand, and I make no great claims to be anywhere close to understanding the daily experience of black Americans in the United States (or even Canada) but I know that I want to make that effort, to even for a moment try to put myself in their shoes and see things from their point of view, and to try and comprehend all the myriad interconnected and inextricably linked social issues which are the direct result of black slavery in America and the continued existence of white privilege which disadvantages them and impacts them in ways that even ethnic minority immigrants can’t even begin to comprehend.
Foolishness. This article is a piece of trash written by someone who came in planning on defending the video, and did so. The author says, in no uncertain terms, that it’s okay for black people to be racists. Because the racist remark of a black person “doesn’t carry as much weight.” I know that when I am discriminated against, it certainly carries weight. Perhaps she is suggesting that white people just don’t have feelings and therefore aren’t hurt by the comments?
Pointing to the quote from Tim Wise, it refers to a bank loan. Well, I know I don’t control any banks, so I can’t respond to a racist insult by denying a bank loan.
The video was in poor taste at best. Even if some of the things said have actually happened to her with specific people, the video is a generalization; everything she does in that video is suggested to be normal. Consider Chris Rock or Dave Chappelle… now take one of their skits that involves a racial group and apply the individual character to the entire racial group. That’s what Ms. Ramsey did.
As for the “our ancestors were slaves” stuff… please STFU. The reason so many public universities had or currently have quota systems is because of that kind of bitching. And guess what? Slavery ended 149 years ago. The oldest living person is about 110. That means that outside of rare cases, the closest any living person comes to American slavery is that one or both of their grandparents were slaves. Krantzstone… I’m going to wager that you are close to 20. So if we assume 25 as the average child-bearing age… that would mean that maybe your great-great-great-great grandparents were slaves.
Actually, slavery persisted well into the 1920′s under a system called peonage, which was arguably worse than slavery. Do your research.
Dear LatinoRevolution,
It’s possible that because you were a child when you came to the United States you didn’t recognize the racism that continues to exist in your country of origin. However, to state that racism doesn’t exist in Latin America is indifference and denial because it surely does continue. And since you’re so proud of being Latino why don’t you do yourself a favor and educate yourself on your own culture’s problems with racism instead of denying it. Search – racism in Latin America and you’ll see that you are very misinformed.
http://canafro.iglooprojects.org/download/library/discrimi/a_region_i?attachment=1
There are literally hundreds of pages of information on the subject if you search for it and take your head out of the sand. And remember where ever there was black slavery there continues to be racism that obviously includes Latin America because that’s where the majority of African slaves were brought to.
Where do you think terms such as;
Mestizo: Spanish father and Indian mother
Castizo: Spanish father and Mestizo mother
Espomolo: Spanish mother and Castizo father
Mulatto: Spanish and black African
Moor: Spanish and Mulatto
Albino: Spanish father and Moor mother
Throwback: Spanish father and Albino mother
Wolf: Throwback father and Indian mother
Zambiago: Wolf father and Indian mother
Cambujo: Zambiago father and Indian mother
Alvarazado: Cambujo father and Mulatto mother
Borquino: Alvarazado father and Mulatto mother
Coyote: Borquino father and Mulatto mother
Chamizo: Coyote father and Mulatto mother
Coyote-Mestizo: Cahmizo father and Mestizo mother
Ahi Tan Estas: Coyote-Mestizo father and Mulatto mother
came from? If there was no racism in Latin America then these racial classifications would not exist. And let’s not forget -In the history of Latin America over the last 500 years or so, the relationships among three races have been a key factor. In the beginning, there were the various indigenous groups. Then came the European colonizers, who later brought black slaves from Africa. The relationships among these racial groups have at times been tumultuous — war, slaughter, subjugation, slavery, exploitation, miscegenation, …
The administration of the vast colonies was placed in the hands of nationals of the European empires. These administrators were rewarded estates for their efforts, and naturally inheritance rights became a significant issue. As a male may have multiple children with multiple women, the rights of these apparent heirs have to be defined, particularly when some of the mothers were not pure Europeans.
So before you comment on how trivial the debate on race is in our country, please do research on your country of origin. Just because YOU didn’t experience racism in Nicaragua doesn’t mean that no one in Nicaragua does! Learn something about your own people and get your head out of the sand, denial is a dangerous thing…
To the guy who said all Americans are more privileged then Nicaraguans: LISTEN there is a difference between a country that’s in poverty then a people in a wealthy country that’s oppresed.. You laugh because you didn’t not come up with the same- non rights and lack of access to resources as mainstrem america. Understand that there were pre meditated plots, calcula to a grain by some of the smartest people in the world to make sure the “right” people stayed on top and the “not right” people down. In capitalism you have to have a poor class the goal was to have as many mainstream americans on top which means keeping the minority down. End with this.. Its much easier to cope when everbody’s poor then to be poor watching rich people pass you buy with enough to support your extended family twice ! That does somthing to your brain. !!
There are alot of white cunts on here pretending to be “minorities”, not sure why yall bother to respond to their passive aggressive BS. “wah wah black people make fun of me too.” STFU
Or we actually are who we say we are, but because some of us don’t fall in line with this nonsense we’re automatically “white” antagonists. Whatever makes you sleep soundly at night with your racism.
Comrades! Why are we fighting when we should be united! United for a Socialist and equal future!
Racism is a tool utilized by the bourgeoisie to keep the human race from properly uniting and over-throwing their capitalist masters! So, giving into racialist thought only hampers unity amongst the proletariat. Agreed, that issues need to be addressed, but doing so in the fashion of Right Wing oligarchs (ie: giving into racialist thought) is not the answer. That’s what the bourgeois wants.
Long Live the Socialist Revolution!
The racial schism currently undermining Americans is an affront to the dream Martin Luther King, Jr. had. It’s a shame!
I am starting to hate the term ‘people of color’
Just another way to lump everyone together and ignore differences.
This is how you get ‘people of color’ telling black people about their problems.
Any term that separates people into labels such as color or race dehumanizes people.
‘This is how you get ‘people of color’ telling black people about their problems.”
I agree Chrissy. Personally I dont consider them part of my people.
I don’t disagree that the use of the term ‘people of colour’ is problematic because it’s an umbrella term used to encompass _all_ minorities, regardless of the major differences in their experiences that make each community unique in their needs and wants in terms of egalitarian treatment in society.
That being said, I think it’s useful politically to use the term when speaking on matters common to all ethnic minorities when it comes to combatting things like racism and systemic racial discrimination and oppression, because there is strength in numbers. I think it’s also important to see the commonalities in our experiences in order to stand united against racism, rather than allow our differences to divide and weaken us.
You are all morons. Black, white, purple… you are all morons.
How can you condemn racism in one sentence and then say something blatantly racist in the next? White people always say this, black people always do that… you can’t be serious. You’re trying to fight fire with fire, and it makes every one of you look ignorant. This is a Youtube parody, and a mediocre one at that. Maybe if black and white people could quit pointing their fingers at one another we could actually get something done in this country. But sadly no, insignificant differences between us are far more important than, oh I don’t know… Genocide, famine, war, corruption, violence – very real issues happening every day in the world we live in… but you’re right, this Youtube video is much more important. How silly of me.
This video is important, regardless if it is a parody or not. Microaggressions have weight, and impact people’s lives everyday. I am shocked at the amount of comments saying 1. that racism doesn’t exist, or 2. that it is somehow not important. Yes, there are other issues such as war and famine around the world, but why is that coming into conversation right now? This video is not about war or famine or whatever. It is about microagressions and racism in North American countries. Whether you are a “person of colour” (I use this term loosely for several reasons as cited by others) or a white person, you are implicated in this issue. I am at a loss of words right now. Caring about racism is not being spoiled, and I can’t believe some people are equating that. Caring about racism is part of a complicated web of power relations and fighting oppression.
I wonder if people will listen when it comes from the mouth of a white person. It’s a shame that it has to come from that angle for the message really to be heard.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8d0KhefRQocangle
I think people will certainly listen to what comes out of the mouth of a white person – but I guess there may be qualifiers as to how much credibility is given depending on the listener and the topic.
I mean as a black woman with unprocessed hair – I will take hair advice from another black woman with unprocessed hair over that of anyone else.
There was a rather controversial article about black travellers to Russia – black people were ROUNDLY chastised by non-black posters when we said that we would credit black travellers’ reports about the black experience abroad far more than when non-blacks tell the stories of black travellers.
Anyone can talk about any topic they want – and I personally will read/listen. I’m not unique in that reaction. Lots of readers/listeners will pay attention to varied responses to any given topic. I believe there is tacit agreement on the part of most that all views are a relevant part of the story.
To my thinking what this woman is saying with her video is: “thick skin, patience, forbearance” – don’t leave home without it!
As for the Nicraguan poster here who stands firmly on the ground that black people in the US are perpetuating atttention to trivia. Really?? And that these kinds of conversations only happen among the 1%er planetwise? Yeah?
Let’s travel around the world and see if there’s no-one else complaining vitriolically because some “minor” action of social etiquette happened or didn’t happen. Neither the US, nor the “west” is unique in the world in terms giving importance to microaggressions or micromanners or whatever else one wants to call these interactions.
I laughed my head off at this video. And I’m white. White people do go around saying stupid things to black people, largely out of ignorance. Black people cannot generally afford to be ignorant about white people. Humour is one of the best tools to get people to look at themselves. I hope to see more of this comedian’s work soon.
[...] was reading this blog post Not Everyone’s Laughing At “Shit White Girls Say To Black Girls” where a writer commented on the Shit White girls say to Black girls video that went viral on the [...]
I think the videos are interesting however I have a few points:
*There is a huge meme of just about every type of person (Black, Arab, Indian, East Asian, gay, etc.) lashing out at white “girls” as if we are one monotone privileged group with bleach blonde hair out of LA. The anger is so thick you can cut it with a knife. And I am not exactly sure how white women are responsible for say, the plight of East Asian women. That seems a bit far removed from the domestic American experience but I am sure I will get flamed for my “insensitivity.” While this type of video was funny at first, it devolved into a nasty, sexist, stereotyped anger-fest.
* You can only push the racial guilt idea so far. I know of people who won’t be friends with certain races because they don’t like “white guilt” heaped on them. They don’t like having to watch every word they say. Frighteningly I know businesses who won’t hire blacks because they have been sued for discrimination so many times–when it is a black against a white, the court rules against the white. These include divisions at fortune 500 companies–good jobs for people of any race. So, unfortunately, I think some of these memes make racism worse and not better.
very true. I don’t think people see the that side of the coin. and i am black from south carolina…and i see both sides, but the latter of what was said is true. it needs to stop.
I would simply like to state that from what I’ve seen, people in America tend to take a lot of pride in where they come from. There is a large amount of grouping that occurs based on fortune, education, heritage, and race. Whether you choose to relate to these aspects of your life is really up to you. Don’t get me wrong not every single person on the face of the planet chooses to see past race but thats my point. Its a choice we all make. The majority of my heritage is German; almost all of it actually. This does not however mean that I wander around with a swastika shouting “Heil Hitler!” and believing myself to be above or greater than Jewish people or non-Germans.
The reason I point this out is to show the extreme of taking so much pride in where you come from and your “people”. If you come across something new to you or something you don”t understand you are curious and desire to learn more about this new thing. Its the same with people. If you meet somebody from a different country you are curious about their way of life and their customs. Nobody questions the purity of your intent in that scenario. However if you’ve never met a black or white or brown person and are unaware of their culture or various aspects of their lives you are automatically racist. This is simply unfair. By deeming these curious people racist you are being racist towards not only them but yourself. By assuming they are asking questions or making uninformed comments because they are racist towards your skin color or heritage, you are allowing that there is a reason for them to feel that way. No matter how far society comes there will always be faux pas. When these mistakes in judgement or these comments simply borne of ignorance are simply looked at for what they truly are their power is lost.
Basically what i’m trying to say is that while you can drone on about “white supremacy” or whatever else; you’re the one who gives these comments power. You can choose to rise above the unintended provocation. If you don’t give these other people power over you they won’t have the ability to anger you or make you question yourself. Just some food for thought.
Unfortunately, that’s an incredibly simplistic view of the complexities of race in North American society.
The fact is, it’s incredibly frustrating to have to deal with the ignorance of others, even when those people are not meaning to be racist. This video was simply highlighting this fact in a humorous manner, and it is the people who felt offended or slighted because of the video who’ve made a huge issue about the video being ‘racist against white people’.
It’s not ‘racist’ to point out other people’s ignorance or internalized racist views which they ignorantly act upon.
It’s easy for a member of the dominant majority group in society to tell minorities that we need to ‘get over it’, or not let these incidents affect us, but members of a dominant majority group don’t know, and will never know what it’s like to have to put up with comments, questions and attitudes like this every single day from ignorant people who not only don’t know better, but don’t care enough to want to know. It’s tiring, frustrating, maddening, and it wears away at a person’s patience for the ignorance of others, especially when it is relates so directly to race.
The reality is that the kinds of comments and attitudes parodied in the video underline the incredibly amount of ignorance that the dominant white majority in society have about minorities, and specifically in this case about black people in America. It matters how people treat each other in society, and especially in the case of something as sensitive as the question of race (and I might point out that the question of race is sensitive precisely _because_ of racism that minorities have experienced: we’re not being prickly about race just for fun, or for the sake of it, it’s a direct emotional response to being treated as different, as alien, as something not normal, to be discriminated against, to have little racial comments thrown our way, to overhear racist remarks and jokes, right on down to being threatened because of our skin colour, to be bullied and ostracized, to simply being beaten, maimed and or killed simply for not being white).
No one is suggesting that the sort of things parodied in the video is anything as frightening as a cross burned on one’s lawn. But the sort of ignorance that’s exemplified in the video is a symptom of a greater societal malaise, which is the total lack of interest by the dominant majority ethnicity in learning more about those in the minority, simply because they don’t have to. They don’t have to care about being sensitive to the feelings of other ethnicities, they don’t have to care about knowing anything more, because it does not impact the dominant majority ethnicity negatively to remain ignorant.
My sister was telling me about how, not too long ago, she met some white guy on the internet who truly believed that Asian women have vaginas that run horizontally rather than vertically.
I mean, COME ON!? In this great age of the internet, where we can look all kinds of things up (including porn, which would quickly disabuse anyone of such silly and unscientific notions), there are people who believe that various races are so fundamentally different from each other that we have differing genitalia, or (as the article author pointed out), ‘tails’?!?!
Honestly, this says more about the state of education in North America than it does about racism, because anyone who even knows the slightest bit about science, anthropology and/or biology knows that racial differences in humans are quite literally skin deep, and “…there is greater variation within “racial” groups than between them.” (from “Statement on ‘Race’” (1998), American Anthropological Association).
I googled “Shit black girls say to white girls” just to see if anything would come up, and I found this article. Clearly, Harris is defending Ramsey’s video. And that’s fine. I’m sure you could easily find an article written by a white woman in strong opposition of the video. The point is, this video and the other “Shit ______ say” videos has probably pissed off as many people as it has delighted. I admit, I’ve laughed hysterically at some of the other videos (mainly the “Shit girls say to gay guys” video because I know for a fact that I, unfortunately, have said some of those things).
I agree with Wow. in that there’s a lot of uproar surrounding this, and other, videos. I laughed the first time I saw Ramsey’s video, but as time wore on, I became more and more offended. Why was it okay for her to just assume that all young white women think this way? Then I read this article and the comments that followed and I realized….we’re all a little too pissed off about a video, and that Ramsey has probably gotten at least a little of what she wanted. I can only assume that there’s an on-going dialogue about the video taking place in college dorms and libraries all over the country, and Ramsey wanted people to discuss the issue. Now we’re discussing it, and I’m sure there are people sitting in front of their computers, steam literally pouring out of their ears, as they read poorly written comments about their given race (black, white, Asian, what have you).
I’d love to make a video entitled “Shit healthy people say to disabled (mentally or physically) people” and see what kind of reaction that gets. Unfortunately, I don’t think it would get nearly the same reaction as this and other similar videos would get. *Soapbox time* People make jokes way too commonly, and cavalierly, about disabled or handicapped people, and yet there’s less of an outcry when it happens.
which i find funny. it’s literally the same. stereotypes stereotypes.
If you are a “minority” with a skin color that is light, please do not pretend to know what it is like to be Black in America. It is wonderful that you can come to this country and prosper. That is really great. And many Black people do the same every day.
But there is much work left to be done here. Do not disrespect the perspective of a people who’s backs literally built the foundation of the country.
And don’t be fooled into thinking that because you cannot see, or experience something yourself, that it does not exist.
I find this all quite ridiculous to tell you the truth, but the fact of the matter is this video should be no more offensive to white women than the stupid statements that are being made to the black women in the video…but they are. period. Now I have many black friends and we have been openly discussing this whole article and the video and we all fibd it quite ridiculous because unless your being personally called or your guilty of the ignorance than you really have no place to be offended & as far as the matter of being called honkey and cracker that is equally offensive as the n word and quite frankly I never expect to be called some ignorant racial slur unless your expecting me to say something equally rude and hateful back…because thats what its about right…equality. now I think racism is a person by person issue and its ignorant to think that white people don’t face racial issues as well…there are stupid people out there of all shapes, colors & origin…and if you don’t realize that then I guess you fall into that exact category.
this pot stirring..I think the pots’ insides have already melted away so there’s really nothing left to stir. Still, the pot gets stirred and this mindless zombie like action keeps going on and on and on until we die. Did someone curse us forever or something or…can we just wake up and stretch our hands and walk away from the stove? That shouldn’t be suuuch a hard thing to do? Humm…seems like the former is true. Such a shame would like to read normal debates again and read normal articles that didn’t charm people into this zombie action. Muuustt fiiight the urrrggee to not stir the pooot…turning off the stove.
So much of this conversation is disturbing. Racism is alive and thriving
[...] especially ones that feel very personal. No one is immune to it. Take, for example, the feminist response to “Shit White Girls Say to Black Girls” or flippant use of the [...]
I’d ask you to consider the bigger picture. In college, I had some of my first experiences with people of other races and cultures. My dorm neighbors included someone from most of the check off categories under race. We made an agreement one night to ask each other the questions that we had about each others’ experiences with our own race/culture….and to understand that the questions were coming from a place of true ignorance. How would we find out the other person’s perspective if we didn’t ask? The result was amazing. Stereotypes were discussed and laid to rest, prejudices were slaughtered and racism took a big hit. Minds were opened…and any time that happens it has a domino effect. Our discussion was ongoing over many months and even years, and each time we’d begin with, “I am completely ignorant about this, please help me to understand….”
Perhaps, sometimes, “Shit White Girls Say To Black Girls” is less about microaggression and more about those white girls trying to acknowledge their ignorance and find someone to assist them with moving past what their parents, friends, and society has taught them….to learn from a real person. I feel lucky that my racial and cultural mentors understood my intent to learn and nurtured my quest for understanding.
As one half of an interracial marriage, I believe that we have a duty to society to serve as role models and ambassadors to society. Its our job to answer questions, dispel prejudices and stereotypes and to pave the way for our children to have a more informed, open minded society in which to live. Is it fair? No. But its imperative that we make a strong effort.