#america's racial history

[alwaysbewoke]

the lies white people tell themselves to escape accountability and a real adult conversation on race, racism and history is just so sad smfh

[afriblaq]

Hidden History

[timaeuslover001]

colonization wasn't started by the europeans in the 1500s.

so stop trying to demonize Europe and America for what they have don't that MANY cultures around the world have already done.

and yes using the term "colonizer" is a racial slur and stop suing it.

[murfpersonalblog]

IWTV Musings: Racism & Intersectionality, in Hollywood and in Fandom Spaces (Pt1: The Raceswaps)

This is in response/support of @adamnablelittledevil's post on this very subject:

"Hopefully people would finally understand nobody is making it up or exaggerating and it is indeed real and worse than they probably think."

Folk try to act like certain problems don't exist, especially when it concerns Black & Bipoc people in predominately white spaces with a KNOWN history of racism. People love to gaslight & be dismissive & rewrite history with revisionist narratives--especially to impressionable people & fans who are NEW to certain fandom spaces or racial dynamics/demographics, and DON'T know the history of the spaces they're entering, or the convos taking place--which is PRECISELY how we wound up with non-Black IWTV fans who ended up in the actual NEWS for prancing around an IRL plantation in 2024, acting like they never heard of slavery, ffs.

At some point, the venn diagram of accidental/willful ignorance, careless/irresponsible tone deafness, and active/passive-aggressive racism actually does intersect.

Incidents like this reflect a fandom steeped in problematic behavior that's too-long gone unchecked by the fans & network alike--who are also at fault for constantly mishandling its own project.

Contrary to poorly researched articles like USA today that denied/handwaved racist backlash against IWTV (a MUCH smaller & younger fandom compared to the LOTR & Amazon's Rings of Power adaptation), from its very inception, as early as the cast announcements, TVC's white fans were PISSED about the raceswaps & outright accused AMC of being woke/DEI (a la Bridgerton) when Jacob Anderson was cast as Louis DPDL.

A Quora thread from 2021:

A Reddit thread from July 2022: (Wayback Machine)

A Reddit thread from 2022 (circa Ep5): (Wayback Machine)

And boy oh boy did this one on Facebook in 2021 age poorly: 💀

Book fans constantly treat AMC's IWTV like performative colorblind trash, rather than as color-conscious prestige tv show that treats historical racism, colorism, classism, sexism, & homophobia seriously. They DGAF what showrunner Rolin Jones had to say about perpetuating the glorification of slaveowners, and just want a 1:1 adaptation of the books, when that was NEVER Rolin's intention.

There's fans who to this day refuse to see/accept Delainey!Claudia, and apparently there's colorist trends on Twitter (cuz ofc 🙄😒) about seeing her as Armand's daughter instead of Lestat's, just cuz of her skin color, which WTF??? (x x x):

Book/film fans hypocritically complain constantly about Bailey Bass (18-19) AND Delainey Hayles (25) playing 14y/o Claudia; but then gush about Vampire Diaries & Twilight & other shows on MTV & CW--who have all casted full grown adults as teenagers. Critiques like this are interesting (x x):

Cuz they specifically mention the Romanian kids and how Claudia supposedly "cannot at all pass for a child." However:

Some of those actual children ain't exactly tiny little toddlers & tykes either! 😅 Cuz age is a spectrum, not a monolith, imagine that.

And laaaawd don't get me started on Armand, and the BS that was happening on Reddit a few years ago (x x):

THIS is the kind of fandom we've been dealing with since DAY ONE.

And yet white fans have the nerve to whine about how tired and pissed they are whenever Bipoc fans call out the racism in the fandom/network, or god forbid look too-deep in the actual racially sensitive/relevant context of the show itself.

But I'll save my thoughts on all that for another post.

[profeminist]

[the-blueprint]

Black people created nearly every major music genre in America, yet black people are underrepresented in industry leadership and awards. It’s been this way since the beginning of the music industry. At the core of this phenomenon is a paradox: America’s admiration for black culture has always coincided with its blatant disdain for black people. Millions of black Americans have to navigate a society that shamelessly sees so much value in their creations, yet so little value in their wellbeing. And nowhere is this unsettling truth more evident than in the history of American music.

[nero-neptune]

not to be black on main, but i don't think racism and/or right-wing 'leanings' are minor inconsequential things worth ignoring in the name of Working Class Solidarity™. like this isn't so much about luigi and whatever he (allegedly) did as it is about the response from (alleged) leftists. unlike many of you making posts like that, i live in the real world (while black). and in the real world, the politics of SO many americans start and stop with hating non-white (or specifically black) people, wherever they personally fall on the class ladder. this is why millions of poor and working class white americans will happily cut off their nose to spite their face if it means millions of nonwhite americans (of Any social class or income) are kept in 'their place'. this is a Big reason why reconstruction failed and the southern strategy succeeded. so, no, it's not something i can afford to look past for the Greater Good, actually. whole time, y'all are talking around it like it's a mild inconvenience, a teeny-tiny bump on the road towards some utopic class unity or whatever, as if racism isn't Fully Baked into politics isn't Fully Baked into classism in the U S of A. once y'all figure that out, something (like fixing this bullshit healthcare system) might actually get done lol

sorry if this complicates your easy 'this is how working class solidarity can still win' narrative, but life is complicated!

[odinsblog]

FROM BIRTH TO DEATH, Black Americans fare worse in measures of health compared to their white counterparts. They have higher rates of infant and maternal mortality, higher incidence of asthma during childhood, more difficulty treating mental health as teens, and greater rates of high blood pressure, Alzheimer's disease and other illnesses.

The Associated Press spent the past year exploring how the legacy of racism in America has laid the foundation for the health inequities that Black people face.

Links to each article beneath the “Keep reading” cut

Why do so many Black women die in pregnancy? One reason: Doctors don't take them seriously (link)

Black children are more likely to have asthma. A lot comes down to where they live (link)

Black kids face racism before they even start school. It's driving a major mental health crisis (link)

High blood pressure plagues many Black Americans. Combined with COVID, it's catastrophic (link)

A lifetime of racism makes Alzheimer’s more common in Black Americans (link)

Medical Racism in History (link)

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"These calls for “getting tough” also generated debate and bitter exchanges between different groups claiming to represent African Americans. Some critics insisted that “law and order” operated as a euphemism for anti-black and anti–civil rights sentiments. Leonard De Champs, chairman of the Harlem Chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), excoriated the NAACP, calling it “oppressive and Nazi-like for its Fascist proposals regarding law and order in the streets of Harlem and New York City’s other Black communities.” He charged that

Vincent Baker’s love for mandated jail sentences and tightened-up parole procedures conclusively proves that the NAACP is an effective enemy of the 1.2 million Black people in this city.

Floyd McKissick, a longtime civil rights activist and another leader of CORE, claimed that the NAACP’s punitive recommendations reflected the interests of the black middle class. He wrote that

the arguments used in the report of the NAACP smack suspiciously of the Ronald Reagan-George Wallace school of repressive ‘law and order,’ at any cost. They appeal to the fears and prejudices of citizens who have even a little bit worth protecting.

He pointed to “a gap of understanding between middle class and poor Blacks along economic lines” and explained that

we should know by now that the addition of more white cops in the ghetto solves nothing. The ones who suffer more from such measures are the poor blacks; not necessarily the guilty ones.

Instead of harsher punishment, McKissick called for community control:

The ghetto must be safe for its citizens, but it cannot be made so by police state tactics. All efforts must be directed toward the ending of conditions which breed crime and chaos; all efforts much be directed toward the development of a Black-orientated, Black controlled law enforcement agency—an agency dedicated to the aid and protection of Black people, not to their suppression.

During this period, a host of community groups and organizations set up treatment programs, many of which received New York City and state funds, intended to be more directly accountable to thecommunities in which they were embedded. Some grew out of churches and established community groups, while others were connected to more radical political organizing. For example, in March 1969, eighty volunteers and twenty-two drug addicts took over a three-story building in Harlem and set up a drug-treatment program. They hoped to bring attention to “the inadequacy of the state’s narcotic program and the entire health program for the black people.” The addicts involved told the New York Times that they had faced a maze of waiting lists and applications in their efforts to secure treatment. One had never heard back from a program he had applied to three years earlier in 1966. The journalist reported that all of the patients interviewed complained that the state’s drug addiction programs were “more punishment than rehabilitation.” One addict asked if “I should turn myself in to the state and be locked up for rehabilitation.” They contrasted the civic degradation of the state treatment programs with guerrilla programs, claiming that in the latter, they “talk to you like a man, not a statistic—the people really want to help you and it makes you want to help yourself.” After a police eviction order, the center was closed and the patients transferred to an “underground hospital.” In subsequent years, other groups also established treatment programs. The Young Lords, a radical group dedicated to Puerto Ricans’ self-determination, were integral to establishing a detox program at Lincoln Hospital.

Drastic fluctuations in policing further intensified frustration within urban communities. In 1969, the city initiated a major intensification in street-level enforcement of drug markets. At a press conference in September, Mayor Lindsay announced that the police department intended to shift the narcotics division’s 500-person force to the pursuit of upper-level drug arrests and direct the entire remaining patrols to prioritize narcotic arrests at the street level. This sweep produced a considerable uptick in narcotics arrests in New York City: they jumped from 7,199 in 1967 to 26,378 in 1970. Then, in 1971, at a high point in the surge of heroin use, the NYPD abandoned their campaign of intensive street-level drug policing. Police officials claimed that the policy was ineffective and expensive and resulted in low conviction rates because the court system did not have the capacity to process the arrests. The result was a dramatic fall-off in arrests. New York City police conducted over 24,025 felony drug arrests in 1970, 18,694 in 1971, 10,370 in 1972, and 7,041 in 1973."

- Julilly Kohler-Hausmann, Getting Tough: Welfare and Imprisonment in 1970s America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017. p. 57-59.

[isawthismeme]

[alwaysbewoke]

[afriblaq]

[blackbrownfamily]

[murfpersonalblog]

I don’t really interact with the fandom very often due to the racism that’s portrayed, but thank you for posting this because you just put into words something that I’ve been struggling to articulate regarding how Louis is perceived and treated by the fandom. Recently, some white woman on TikTok posted some “analysis” of sorts about Louis and Claudia and basically she came to the conclusion that if Claudia was not turned by Lestat, that if she survived as a human and grew older, eventually she would’ve turned out to become one of Louis’ girls/prostitutes because according to this creator, Louis has no regard for women and girls and only sees them as commodities. I wish I could find that TikTok for you, but I pressed “Not Interested” so quickly after I heard that. She phrased it like “if Claudia survived as a human, how long would it be until she would become one of Louis’ girls?”

Something about that just made me so deeply uncomfortable. It really opened my eyes up to how both Louis and Claudia as the leading black characters are perceived by the white fandom. It sort of is a reflection of how they see us as black people in real life too, but we won’t get into that lol.

Because why is THAT the first thing that comes to mind when wondering about what Claudia hypothetically could’ve been if she had the chance to grow up? She could be a wife, a mother, anything else and THAT is where their minds go? And why is Louis the only character that has his past held against him by the fandom? There is so much grace given to Lestat and Armand, but none to Louis.

I’m not saying that Louis is perfect and that he has no faults, but yeah. Thank you for making that post because it really articulated what I’ve been feeling and trying to say.

@autumn-slaves Thank you so much for sending me this! ❤️ I'm so glad that you like my metas, and that my long-winded tirades are actually articulating people's thoughts about IWTV, AMC!Louis, and receptions by this wild AF fandom.

Recently, some white woman on TikTok posted some “analysis” of sorts about Louis and Claudia and basically she came to the conclusion that if Claudia was not turned by Lestat, that if she survived as a human and grew older, eventually she would’ve turned out to become one of Louis’ girls/prostitutes because according to this creator, Louis has no regard for women and girls and only sees them as commodities.... why is THAT the first thing that comes to mind when wondering about what Claudia hypothetically could’ve been if she had the chance to grow up? She could be a wife, a mother, anything else and THAT is where their minds go?

Yeah, there's something crucial that people don't seem to realize:

Claudia is arguably the best & most tragic character AR ever created, cuz she was always DOOMED by the narrative.

Woulda coulda shouldas are absolutely pointless. Claudia was NEVER meant to grow up, cuz Anne Rice's daughter Michelle never got to grow up, either.

Book!Claudia was abandoned by her biological father, who ditched her & her sickly mom when they contracted the plague. Her mom died & she was left in the house all alone, and would've soon died of plague, even if book!Louis hadn't found her & drained her nearly dry; and Lestat Turned her to babytrap Louis.

Likewise, AMC! Claudia was abandoned by her biological father “whose daddy gave her away to a mean old auntie” after her mom died in childbirth. She was trapped in the house all alone when it caught fire, and would've soon died in the fire, even if AMC!Louis hadn't found her & caused the riots and Lestat Turned her to babytrap Louis.

Either way, Claudia was destined to die.

AMC even takes it a step further, to have Claudia be a twisted & more tragic version of book!Loustat's 2nd daughter, Rose.

AMC!Claudia was NEVER gonna get to grow old enough to be a prostitute, cuz the race riots & fires that burned down her home were gonna happen in 1917 (when she was 14) anyway.

AMC based the race riots on IRL events that happened when the racist Ordinances segregated NOLA & shut down Storyville in 1917 (the year Claudia died/Turned); kicking all the black people out of their homes & businesses to gentrify it for rich white people. AMC changes things so it looks like Louis' solely to blame for the riots burning down Storyville cuz HE blames himself (for everything). But even if Lou was never a vampire & never killed the Alderman, he'd've never been able to keep the Azalea; and Claudia wouldn't survived the fires that broke out as white people burned down Storyville to force ALL the Black people who refused to leave out of the area. Where would Claudia have gone?

"And why is Louis the only character that has his past held against him by the fandom? There is so much grace given to Lestat and Armand, but none to Louis."

Exactly. People act like Louis was the ONLY man in NOLA running a whorehouse; it's ridiculous how bad people don't pay attention.

Finn O'Shea was the one who helped burn the Azalea down, and it's HIGHLY likely that his "supper club" (ie: underground whorehouse) across the street was JUST FINE once all the Darkies were gone.

Another thing about the fire is Claudia's own dreams/what-if scenario about what could've happened if she'd never been Turned.

The whole hospital argument is moot, cuz we see half her face covered in burns in 1x4/2x7, and Lou said "she's going cold." Burns even in 2024 are dangerous, let alone 1917. She ranted about having a husband & raising babies, but IF she survived & not been Turned, she'd've been a half burned/scarred; and her throat/lungs would probably be effed up from all that smoke inhalation. Marriage & children seems highly unlikely for someone who'd've been a (possibly comatose/bedridden) hospital inmate for YEARS, slowly recovering from SEVERE burns "her body's all charred" with 1917 treatments.

Not to mention, which hospital?? 🤨 In the middle of a race riot/racial PURGE; when the whole effing district was under siege, hundreds if not thousands of people would've been all kinds of injured & dying, or just in need of shelter.

Like, I know nothing about NOLA hospitals, but Google told me:

The Flint Goodridge Hospital was for Black people (cuz segregation, and most private hospitals refused to serve Black patients), but in 1916 only had 50-60 beds. They charged "1 Penny A Day" for hospitalization, which was crazy cheap even for that time, so that poor Black folk could afford to be seen.

Maybe Charity Hospital? They had a "colored ward," but by the 1930s was notoriously racist & kept the ward in terrible conditions, with Black patients as their lowest priority & left to wait HOURS just to be seen.

"Private hospitals such as Ochsner, Mercy, Touro, and Southern Baptist" refused to integrate before the gov't forced them in the 1960s during the Civil Rights Movement (x x). Same with Tulane (Medical Center/School/whatever), which didn't even accept Black students till the 1960s, so I doubt they'd've taken her either.

Maybe Hotel Dieu? I don't think it was private, so maybe they would've taken in Black folk?

The French Hospital only had 60ish beds even by the 1940s (when it got shut down). IDK if they were anything like NOLA's French Opera House, which was hella segregated.

The Marine Hospital was for sailors/etc; but had a ward for kids, but only took in the mentally ill. They charged $1 per day for hospitalization.

So yeah, the odds of Claudia being seen, let alone successfully treated long-term, are rather low, esp. when so many other people would've needed care, too, and there were VERY few beds in NOLA hospitals at the time.

But even if Claudia hadn't died that night, the dream she wanted would've died, too. Granted, I'm not saying we should THANK Louis for "saving"/damning her (just like we shouldn't THANK him for taking in girls as prostitutes). Vampirism IS inherently evil. But she definitely needed a bit of reality check, too. Louis wasn't gonna risk wasting time finding a hospital that could/wouls take her, when she was "barely breathing," cuz he knew Turning her was a quicker & surer way of having someone heal her ASAP--Lestat.

Like, YES, Louis saved her for selfish reasons--his ego was SHOT, and he just needed to help save SOMEONE, to feel like he wasn't a FAILURE anymore (he'd JUST lost the Azalea & been kicked out of his home by Grace/Florence & was ready to divorce his husband Lestat who was busy cheating on him with a white woman).

It didn't matter to Louis if she was a girl or a dude ("a family of my own...no sons, no daughters"), so long as he had someone he could FINALLY feel like he "did right by."

"according to this [Tik Tok] creator, Louis has no regard for women and girls and only sees them as commodities.... "

Jfc. Oh, I'm sure Louis only ever saw his mother & Grace as commodities, yup! XD ZERO regard for women, yeees, which is why he stood up for Bricktop when she nearly killed the Alderman for raping her, when plenty of other guys would've fired her for jeopardizing his business~! And why Louis DIDN'T allow Tom Anderson to sleep with his girls for FREE so they couldn't earn any money whatsoever, the way Tom did at the Fairplay, where he treated prostitutes like fleshlights; cuz Louis disregards women SO MANY TIMES~! 🙄 Nevermind that Louis let Bricktop be in charge of the books, cuz he trusted her with his money & the legalese of running his businesses in a sexist world that thought women were only ever useful on their backs!

Nevermind that Louis was openly sobbing about how much he HATED being a pimp, cuz all he wanted was to be RESPECTED as a respectable man with a respectable business; and that he DIDN'T want to exploit women, and he KNEW it was wrong to exploit women--the show NEVER glamorized prostitution as if human exploitation of any kind is a GOOD thing. Lou turns a blind eye in the hopes of pleasing his rotten MOTHER & taking care of his spoiled SISTER; who still HATED him even as they took his dirty money. What was it all for, if not even his own family respected him?! But Lou doesn't have regard or respect or care for women at allll~!

We can acknowledge what a deeply flawed & selfish & naive idiot Louis can be; while still acknowledging that he HATES hurting people. He's NOT a sadist, and has never been comfortable or OK with being put in a position where he has to hurt people for his own benefit--hence his whole issue with vampirism & his confession booth scene. His whole thing is STRUGGLE; fighting to do the right thing in bad circumstances, when it's already too late--they're all already DAMNED. Keep up, y'all. XD

"It really opened my eyes up to how both Louis and Claudia as the leading black characters are perceived by the white fandom. It sort of is a reflection of how they see us as black people in real life too...."

FACTS. That's really all it is--antiblack racism plain & simple. You can tell every time they get PISSED whenever Black people get on their case for being insensitive, demeaning, microaggressive, hypocritical, etc. Cuz art imitates life, so if you're THAT quick to demonize the characters that the show's deliberately going to great lengths to show as sympathetic & genuine--ESPECIALLY Louis' love for Claudia--and you're saying Louis DGAF about women & only ever commodifies them, you're deliberately being obtuse & refusing to see the MULTIFACTED aspects of his character.

[ausetkmt]

The Racist History Behind the U.S. Racial Wealth Gap | Doha Debates

Generations of slavery, followed by predatory financial practices and housing discrimination, have stolen opportunities — and billions of dollars — from Black Americans and widened the U.S. racial wealth gap. 

Could reparations begin to equal the playing field?

 To learn more about the racial wealth gap, check out "The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap" by Mehrsa Baradaran: https://bit.ly/3ub9ThH

[the-blueprint]

The list of banned young adult (YA) books by Black authors above, was retrieved from PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans (July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2022). In addition to the book titles and authors, the document lists the state, district, type of ban, date of challenge/removal, and origin of challenge. The document is being updated periodically, so check for new books added. Visit the PEN America link above for a detailed definition of a school book ban.

bcbooksandauthors.com