Hi guys! I’m getting a lot of asks about the new Tw*light book coming that’s apparently coming out. I know that for years I’ve made a lot of posts about the series for good fun, but I actually haven’t read any of the books since the last one came out in August 2008, when I was only 14. I never reread them.
It’s been literally 12 years, and in reality I don’t remember much about the books except major plot points.
As an adult, I’ve learned a lot about the problems in the series, and I can’t ignore them.
I won’t be giving Smeyer any money, even for a laugh.
However, with all the new hype, I would like to mention that the Quileute Tribe, who are taken from heavily for the series, is currently raising funds to move its school to higher grounds. The school and community are located in a tsunami zone on the Pacific coast, risking lives and access to their culture (via language learning, etc.).
Whenever I need help, you all come through with such generosity for me, it’s humbling. I’d love if anyone with a few dollars to spare could now direct that compassion and care to the Quileute Nation.
Do you ever think about the fact that the US has created and legitimized a system of institutionalized inequality by funding schools through property taxes? That basically a child’s education is only as good as the value of the property in their neighborhood. Funny how education is so often viewed as an equalizing factor when there is nothing equal about it.
I really don’t care if I’ve already reblogged this
Because this needs to be reblogged….
I remember learning this for the first time as an adult. I had grown up thinking education was the great playing field leveler. So I was so furious to find out how very much it wasn’t anything of the kind.
This is a big part of why you’ll often see rich white people fussing about school district lines, because they hate the idea that their money is going towards the education of poor children.
Also when California tried to correct it by equalizing school district funding but centralizing property taxes, voters passed prop 13, limiting property tax to 1% of the last sale value, which matters when you live in a house for 30 years.
Opinions about witches-ofcolor and their beliefs about cultural appropriation? I looked at their blog after yesterday's discourse. They think certain races can worship certain things.
I think there are certain practices that should be RESPECTED AS coming from certain races, but converts exist, and we’ll never understand eachother if we try to police who can and can’t believe in/practice something based on skin color.
Cultural appropriation is when you appropriate culture, not when you simply practice something from a culture not your own. People need to learn the difference between appropriation and doing what culture is meant to do so it can be understood: appreciated and shared.
I think there are certain practices that should be RESPECTED AS coming from certain races, but converts exist, and we’ll never understand eachother if we try to police who can and can’t believe in/practice something based on skin color.
Cultural appropriation is when you appropriate culture, not when you simply practice something from a culture not your own. People need to learn the difference between appropriation and doing what culture is meant to do so it can be understood: appreciated and shared.
Hey there! I was made aware of this by an anon. I’m not here to start an argument with you, but cultural appropriation absolutely can be when you practice something from a culture that’s not your own, especially considering the historical trauma that may come with it.
Many of our practices have heavy ancestral and cultural connections and are based on race and ethnicity as being a requirement to practice it. People not apart of that culture are not only approaching from an outsider perspective but utilizing energies that they aren’t entitled to!
This is the case of Hoodoo and most traditions with African ties. It’s actually offensive when non-black people do practice, especially if you are white, due to the history and trauma of slavery.
You can boost our voices, but practicing is very disrespectful. It’s like using jewelry from some random family just because you can. This is a very complex issue, and unless you do practice you shouldn’t really be making blanket statements like this!
All i’m asking is that you respect me as I respected you!
Then how do you expect people to understand the practice, exactly? Refusing to let someone practice (let’s use your example) hoodoo because of their skin color garuntees they will always be ignorant of that practice. Ignorance opens the gate for bigotry. Bigotry opens the gate for descrimination. Descrimination for oppression. Etc.
And history and trauma of slavery is not an excuse to exclude someone from your cultural practice. Because 1) No african alive today was enslaved in America. 2) Africans SOLD THEIR OWN PEOPLE into slavery as they had been doing to centuries prior and still do to this day, they weren’t taken. 3) if a history of abuses by a certain race is enough excuse to bar them from your cultural practices, then you cannot complain at all about anti-muslim sentiment in America. Let alone in places like Greece, which have a very recent (more recent than africans) experience with Genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Empire (early 1900’s in fact) which was Muslim. And in the city I was born in, we have officially lost our right to be upset about the anti-hispanic sentiment, since it has a history of being abused by hispanic gang members.
Oh… wait… that only applies to people who’s skin is white, right? We get to bar them from our cultural practices, but they can’t do the same or it’s “racism” right?
I’m just saying. There’s a difference between appropriation and appreciation. And a big difference between righteous anger and bitterness. Righteous anger is for those who actually experienced it. Not for their descendants who have not even come close.
This is incredibly disheartening. People understand the practice by listening to us speak. We teach about our practices in a way that’s not appropriate. I can learn and understand something about a culture without being apart of it. Its possible. You can take a back seat and still understand.
It’s not an excuse, it’s a reason. I’m not reading too much into what you said. Hoodoo is a practice that was left to us, the descendants of African Slaves, to connect back to them. You’re coming from a place of someone who doesn’t understand.
By definition, hoodoo was given to us by our ancestors so we can connect to them in this life and the afterlife. That’s why other people can’t practice, because it’s impossible.
And while no African American was enslaved, we still suffer the effects of it, both culturally and healthwise. And while Africans did sell their people, this really doesn’t have any barring to the conversation on white supremacy, not the conversation of descendants of African American descendants.
I’m really trying to come to you out of a place of respect. You don’t practice hoodoo so you really shouldn’t be speaking over people who do. Yesterday I respected when it came to transmisogyny, because you are a trans woman and it was not my place to speak on something you don’t experience. Can you please give the same decency to me, because this is something you clearly don’t understand. You’re combative, I’m not trying to be.
Just please respect me and my culture
There’s a difference between taking a back seat and being told you’re not allowed to do the things you’re supposed to be appreciating because of your skin color.
It is an excuse. You were not a slave. None of their trauma is your trauma. None of their experiences are your experiences. For THEM it would’ve been a reason. For you it is an excuse.
Nothing in faith is impossible. That’s why it’s faith.
No, you really don’t. You’re not suffering today because your ancestors were slaves. You’re sufferig today because the people in positions of power are convinced that you should. Not because your ancestors were slaves, but because they’re bigots who believe white skin makes them better. That would exist even if slavery never had, and in fact existed long before it as the Spaniard Conquisidors proved quite handily.
Just don’t participate in any “white” customs. Don’t celebrate christmas or thanksgiving. If they can’t participate in your culture, you can’t participate in theirs. If you’re not a hypocrite, that should be no problem. And it’ll be no problem for me to respect your culture if you’re actually going to put your money where your mouth is and only practice things that are YOUR culture. It’s “cultural appropriation” otherwise, after all.
Oh my god, you’re filled with so much bitterness and sadness that I"m not going to continue.
You don’t even realize how what you’ve said is offensive. You are arguing with the reason a practice was created, and looking like a fool while doing so.
If you have an issue, take it up with the ancestors. This is how they wanted it, and you’re trying to negate something that was put into place over 400 years ago.
Someone hurt you and you clearly haven’t healed from the past trauma, and you’re deflecting on innocent people.
I have a point against every single thing you said, but you’d just negate it with your own anger.
I can’t help but be shocked that you can’t give the same level of respect to me that I gave you.
You’re just going off on a mad tangent and it just looks so pathetic.
This is so incredibly anti-black and racist, but you’re just so clouded with hate you can’t see it.
It is an excuse. You were not a slave. None of their trauma is your trauma. None of their experiences are your experiences. For THEM it would’ve been a reason. For you it is an excuse.
Wow…this person really hasn’t done their research on generational trauma and how the Black communities around the world are still suffering from the lasting effects of slavery.
There’s no such thing as generational trauma. That’s just an excuse to hate people long after the acts that you’re claiming to hate them for, despite them not doing any of these acts since all the people who did them are DEAD.
you don’t have to be weird and pretentious about your education … keep in mind that there are millions of people who wish they could study and they can’t. dark academia rubs me the wrong way bc of the ‘omg im so broody and melancholic and woe is me im just gonna sm*ke n read some old white man classic for the 50th time in a drippy brick house n pen a novel’ train of thought. .. literally get over yourself 😐 go outside n rmr that the world exists outside of your damp n dark bubble ..
love that this post is still getting notes … yes it’s still important !
One day I want y’all to think about how being ace is different for POC and how mocking aces because u think they’re all weirdo whites does nothing in end
Anyway, daily reminder from a culturally isolated Romani person.
Gypsy does not mean wanderer.
It literally means ‘people from egypt’ or similar, as europeans believed Romani people were from Egypt. It has become known similar to nomad due to how our ancestors have been forced to be nomadic due to racism and ostracization, but it is a SLUR.
Romani people are STILL being forcibly sterilized.
Romani people are STILL being forced into ghettos.
Romani people are still facing violence and danger in countless European countries- and recently, I’ve seen the beginnings of the extremes in the United States.
Have a little fucking respect and DON’T USE A SLUR THAT’S BEEN USED FOR CENTURIES AGAINST US.
And for the love of whatever’s up there, ESPECIALLY do not use it to describe your witchcraft. It is playing on the ‘magic gypsy’ trope, and is EXTREMELY insulting.
