Dear God, this country needs Ethnic Studies. Don't know what Ethnic Studies is? That's why we need it. 1/10
Ethnic Studies teaches you the most basic things about how race works in the country. Like how racism is structural and generational. How power operates. What intersectionality ACTUALLY is. How racial categories are constructed in law, culture, politics, and society. 2/10
Racism IS NOT when someone says something offensive to you about some aspect of your identity. It is racism if the statement is EMBEDDED and SUPPORTED by a historical structure of power that has used that characterization to dehumanize/oppress entire groups of people. 3/10
Because something hurts your feelings doesn't make it racist. Because you don't like it doesn't make it racist. Racism isn't about individual interactions. It's about how those interactions operate within larger histories and matrices of power. 4/10
For example, I despise Bill Maher for his Islamophobia and misogyny. But him comparing Trump to an orangutan IS NOT the same as Roseanne calling Black women apes 5/10
Maher's joke might be tasteless to you, or you might be offended by it. OK, fine. But there isn't a long and well-documented history of people calling white men orangutans that has been used to subjugate and disenfranchise white men as a group. 6/10
On the other hand, calling Black people apes has a long and vile history of cultural representation in this country. Comparing Black people to apes/monkeys was a way of showing they had not evolved through Darwinian evolution. See: huffingtonpost.co.za/2018/01/15/com… 7/10
So Roseanne's statements are RACIST, while Maher's may be merely offensive to some, because comparing Black people to apes has long been a tool of white supremacists to cast Black people as inferior and animalistic. See the difference? 8/10
So please, PLEASE stop making these completely inane comparisons between statements that are offensive to those that are unequivocally RACIST. Same goes for those who say that BLM or other groups who call out white privilege and white supremacy are racist. 9/10
Bc where are the examples of large-scale disenfranchisement of white Americans by people of color holding positions of power AT EVERY LEVEL? No, Obama doesn't count. Take time to learn how race has functioned in law, politics, & culture. In other words, ETHNIC STUDIES. 10/10
