Idk like imagine you’re like broke and struggling and trying to make a good life for yourself and it isn’t easy but like, y'know, you try to make do. And then someone breaks into your house and kills your family.
You’re like, holy shit, what the fuck, and the murderer is like “Hey man. I’m just trying to afford college. Have you seen tuition rates? And like. I didn’t know I’d be in charge of murdering your family. Honestly I thought I’d be like, maybe doing some kind of deskwork to help in the larger project of murdering your family, I didn’t think I’d be holding the gun! I don’t wanna be doing this either, man”
And then the driver who delivered that person to your house specifically for the mission to kill your family is like “Yeah dude, take it easy. We’re ALL victims of capitalism here. You think he KNEW he’d be killing your family? You think I knew I’d be driving him to your house to kill your family? We were exploited. They said by doing this we’d be able to avoid student debt. Don’t be angry with us, be angry with the system.”
And then the guy who killed your family starts weeping and freaking out because like, holy shit, how is he supposed to live with himself? And he goes “Ugh it’s gonna be so hard to get through college with all this trauma. This isn’t easy you know” and the driver is like “There there. We didn’t even want to do this. We were trying to get the people in the neighboring house anyway”
And if you say anything about how maybe the real victim is you, with the broken in house and dead family, and that perhaps you ALSO would like to afford college and how would they feel if YOU were offered a free ride in exchange for killing their families, but it’s too late and they’re already gone and years later they make a movie about all the people who were involved in breaking into your house and killing your family and how they were exploited actually
The conversation surrounding cultural appropriation has been so severely mutilated by white “allies” that the original intention behind that conversation has become almost unrecognizable in most social contexts.
To explain what I mean, the conversation around cultural appropriation was started by black and native people to discuss the frustrations we feel at being punished socially and financially for partaking in our cultural heritage while white people could take, I.e. appropriate, aspects of our culture that we are actively shamed for and be heralded as innovators. It was about the frustrations we feel when the same white people who shamed us would take our culture and wear it as if they were the ones who created it while still actively shaming us for doing the same.
The original push behind naming cultural appropriation and having these conversations were so that we as a society could evaluate why we were punished for our heritage while white People were not. It was supposed to be about seeking solutions. The idea was to create a society where we could celebrate our cultures with impunity. It was never about telling white people that they “weren’t allowed” to do certain things. We did ask that white People stop doing certain things because they weren’t doing them respectfully and were not invited to do them, but the primary reason we asked them to desist was to reclaim the things they had stolen and to reassign them culturally back where they belonged.
White “allies” saw these conversations happening and instead of trying to aplify our own voices or even try to learn about the complexities behind why we were saying what we were saying, they instead began screaming over us and creating a narrative that was hardly even the bones of what we originally set out to say. It was like they took the conversation we were trying to have, completely decontextualized it, and stripped it of all it’s nuance in order to gain social currency by seeming progressive.
So the conversation around cultural appropriation went from “This aspect of our heritage belongs to us and we find it egregious that we are shamed for it. What steps can we take to address the racism that’s creating this situation as well as rehome the things that have been stolen” to “you’re not allowed to do that because if you do that you’re racist, we don’t really understand why that’s racist but you’re not allowed to do that and if you do that you’re a klansman no exceptions. So you’re not allowed because because”
At the end of the day, did I like the fact that sally was wearing dreads? No. But my primary concern was not that sally was wearing dreads but rather that sally could wear dreads and I couldn’t. THAT was the intended focus of those conversations. It was about addressing the inequality. It was about us. Now the conversation is just about sally and were completely forgotten.
White People are always asking me what they can do to help. You want to know? Stop talking. Aplify our voices and shut the fuck up because you all have pretty much derailed this conversation and many more like it to the point that we no longer are trying to make steps to understand and dismantle the racism around cultural appropriation and instead are just using it as social shaming tactics.
TL;DR: read my post. Most things worth learning about can’t be summarized in the bullet points of a buzfeed article. Don’t come into academic circles and complain because everything hasn’t been conviently summarized for you. Stop pretending that things aren’t accessible to you because you refuse to do the intellectual labor that is learning.
Well, technically it’s not new : it’s a nurse shark. What’s new, however, is that it’s the first xanthic (imagine albinism but in yellow) nurse shark ever found !! Not only it’s not common AT ALL to find fishes with xanthism (it’s the first cartilagenous fish ever recorded with this type of genetic “anomally”), but if it’s there and still existing as an adult, it means the species is chill-ish with other predators (it probably would have been eaten by then). Its eyes are white so it can also be a form of albinism, in addition to xanthism !!!!!
And most of all : ITS SO CUTE !! AND IT’S SUCH A COOL FIND !!
Please if a marine biologist or someone with more info can interact with this post to feed me some more info or correct me on wrong infos i'e given I’d love it !
(Also if you have pics of animals with xanthism, it’s also very appreciated!!)
Tumblr being the "piss on the poor" reading comprehension site makes sense when you realize that 79% of adults in the US are functionally illiterate. Same goes for Twitter and TikTok.
On Saturday I said to my partner, as I have said for months, “A ten thousand dollar a year raise would solve so many of my problems.”
As of this morning I was reluctantly looking for jobs because I love my job and don’t want to leave it, but see: $10k raise problem solver.
As of noon today this was no longer an issue, because my boss called me with the news that I was getting a $10K merit raise.
I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. This is roughly $200 extra per paycheck. Enough to pay off debt faster, rebuild my savings, and spend a weekend a month in Milwaukee getting obscenely laid. The sex I’m going to have on $200 extra per paycheck. You can’t even.
May all of you get the $10K raise your soul has yearned for. And whatever level of sex you can be satisfied with for $200.
Reblog to get either a $10K raise per year or obscenely laid in Milwaukee.
The selection is random and non-transferable.
Best roulette wheel ever. For what it’s worth, the sex I’m having in Milwaukee is absolutely equivalent to ten thousand dollars a year at LEAST. There are no losers here.
