BRAND X
Posts tagged story of my life
I spent most of my life being silent on shit that bothers me, and learning that when I open my mouth I will lose friends, I will be cast out of social circles, I will annoy coworkers. I will be punished for believing that my humanity and the humanity of others is worthy of respect and more meaningful than jokes or snide comments.
That shit isn’t fun.
It isn’t fun to share interests and truly enjoy the company of people and later find out that they participate in dehumanizing and oppressive social structures.
It isn’t fun to want to have friends but know that they believe in really terrible stereotypes that perpetuate discrimination, violent crime, and more.
It isn’t fun to have to put up with microaggressions, and be considered “irrational” when you call them out.
It isn’t fun to tell people that something isn’t okay, only for them to feel put upon for having to think about their problematic shit.
It isn’t fun to be called “hypersensitive” when the reality is that the people around you are simply insensitive.
No fun at all.
Calling people on their shit is necessary but painful and isolating and times, so fuck anyone who thinks it’s something people derive pleasure from doing.
Take ‘em all the way to church.
2,500 notes (via glitterlion & wretchedoftheearth)
(Source: brandx)
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- The Mary Frances Cookbook, by Jane Eayre Fryer (Philadelphia, 1912)
Please note that at no point in the summary do they mention that the book has racist elements; it’s a “beautiful” book with a “lovely story line” that modern readers should “simply enjoy”.
It never ceases to bemuse me that, as a chromatic woman, white/Western people admire me for voraciously reading old-fashioned books and classic English literature — without understanding how much it costs me every time I digest these references to “heathen Hindoos” or “pickaninnies” or “rat-eating Chinee” and how long it’s taken me to vomit them from my system.
My relationship with white books is so often a mirror of my relationship with white people; I build up a devotion to them, these antique cookbooks and Sherlock Holmes stories and Louisa May Alcott novels, and then as I’m happily reading along I suddenly discover that my admiration is decidedly not mutual and this is what they think of me. Things are never quite the same after that.
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