We survived by the skin of our teeth.

Feb. 6, 2012 at 7:12pm with 39 notes

Reblogged from as-cool-as-i-am

the reason why most racists and appropriators won’t accept that they’re doing racist and appropriative things

(this post is a follow-up to the “you don’t know me” clause)

I think it is because they automatically assume the individualist point of view. They assume it is about them as individuals, they think it is the caller’s individual problem and cannot entertain the thought that cultural appropriation and its hurtfulness are actually MUCH BIGGER than any individual on any side of argument, and therefore fail to understand what they’re actually being called out on.

Explaining the systemic racism and institutional power that they wield won’t work, either, because those things do not exist for the pure individual. They are not, in their minds, a part of any system. They don’t like to think that their freedom of choice is in essence a freedom to choose from a limited set of options defined by someone else for specific purposes, because that sense of freedom of choice is all they have to go on.

They don’t see how their own white privilege blinds them to the fact that it’s only through their whiteness and normativity that they can go on thinking they’re beautiful and unique snowflakes. It’s only because those of us who are not normative are systematically denied our own individuality that they can have theirs.

(Source: dolgematki)