#cultural white washing

[xtrablak674]

When Did I Become Black?

Was having a very interesting conversation with my nibling this morning, about the lack of Puerto Rican culture that was cultivated in their household and how their Boricua-ness would be gone by the next generation, if it wasn't gone already.

When did I become Black? If I was being honest, other than a cookout or two a year, we weren't really overtly Black in my household either. It is such a curious thing to think about because I am known as the #ExtraBlack uncle to my nieces, niblings and nephews. I was more likely to get Frankenberry for breakfast than anything remotely ethnic.

For all intensive purposes, I was raised American. Watching American television shows, going to American schools, participating in American extracurricular activities, all the while speaking English. I guess the obvious thing is to unpack what exactly is American, if I am looking through a childhood lens, it would be popular culture that seemed to be practiced by everybody else, no matter what their social economical background.

I grew up in a time when even though cable had just began to peek its head out, we were all watching the same television shows at the same times. We bought similar food at the supermarket, we ate out at the same places, the Chinese restaurant, the pizza shop, my mom bought her meat at Butcher Boys like everyone else in our small town.

My mom never made black-eyed peas with neck-bones or fish and grits, a unique dinner meal for us was pork chops and applesauce, the very same thing I knew the Brady family ate on television. And for all intensive purposes my peers were having the same thing at least I assumed they were. The most unique thing my white friend Robert bought to school in his homemade lunch was fruit roll ups, which he always shared with me if I made a funny face for him. I was one of the free lunch recipients but both Black and white kids got free lunch.

My local public elementary school was pretty dichromatic, you were either white or Black. Even looking at the low-resolution class photo, there are maybe some Latinx folks in the class, but the only colors that come through clearly are white and Black. There are about four kids who may be "other" albeit at the time I had no idea of what that other could be, my interaction with Latinx kids was severely limited, I remember meeting a Latino cousin at a family picnic in the park and I thought he was so cool, more-so for just being something different than what I normally experienced.

Dr. King was on the peripheral of my existence, no portrait of him hung in any of the homes I was raised in. My mom did have a bust of Nefertiti, but she felt like a white lady to me, I didn't know any Black women who looked like that. I can clearly recall my mom's dashikis, but I just thought they were comfortable shirts, not a statement or a symbol of defiance against The Man. I guess the Blackness was there, but not in such great amounts to make it distinctive against the homogeny of Americanness.

Seriously, I am not the first person to ask what qualifies as Black, an albeit its such a huge part of my identities today, its like I said in another essay, "I Never Made It About Race, America Did". As I told my nibling, I hadn't really considered my race other than the altercation I had biking through this neighborhood in my town and being chased away by white boys being called a nigger. My race didn't really come to the forefront until I moved to the Bronx after my mom died, and it seemed like I entered an episode of Oz because everyone was grouped by where their ancestors came from, not the fact that we were all just American kids trying to figure out puberty and the world around us.

It was at this time Asians came to my awareness and Latinx became much more prominent, I then also learned that there were special groups of white people like the Albanians who terrorized my Bronx neighborhood. But city-life was much different than life in a small town, we had gangs in a city, a whole new vegetable, as I entered junior high school and I was terrorized by Decepticons, who were not ten foot tall talking robots.

Colorism was introduced to me way before racism, which is curious because colorism is racisms first cousin. I remember repeatedly being called out for being dark-skinned usually by people who had complexions just like mine. Meaning my Black peers or more-than-likely their parents had drank that white supremacy Kool-Aid that sought to divide us as far back as the plantation up into current times.

Very early I learned that my complexion wasn't as desired as my brothers medium browns or my mixed first cousins very fair complexions due to their whyte mom, my Aunt Cynthia who was married to my mom's youngest and only brother. The call was coming from inside the house, which did lead to me thinking less of myself and wanting to be lighter like my siblings.

I am gonna stop and post this here, but this feels like a topic I can explore a lot deeper because in my head I haven't answered the question I put forth at the top. I didn't answer my own question in my essay, I think the topic is much more complicated than I initially thought and that Blackness was something I came into slowly over a long period of time, not necessarily because I wanted to, but because I was forced to.

[Photo by Brown Estate]

[arkiwii]

the "arknights is better than genshin" people went real queiet since the summer event dropped

[faunandfloraas]

Criticising korean fans when they do something actually dodgy is all fine and good, should go for anyone who does invasive or weird, shit but also the amount of times now I see (usually western) fans just being like. Blatantly xenophobic and racist. Pretty much being like Yuck korean fans.... ?????? You're obsessed with a KOREAN POP ACT? why are you saying Korea like it's a slur you weirdo

[auxxrat]

ALSO—

Star Wars community as a WHOLE needs to talk about the constant disrespect that Tem has gotten.

[just-some-friendly-fun]

Maybe, I sound a little nitpicky here, or some other word that I can't figure out right now to determine the current tone of my words but.

Looking through some of the fanfiction, in regards to Bi-Han, I think some baffled me in particular and it's not even that big of a deal or anything but it just scratches beneath my skin a little. Like, oh! Bi-Han cooking something for you! I can see that!-- what do you mean he's making you a complete English meal.

Unless it's something that the reader enjoys, and he's making it in favor to their taste preference, then that's sweet! But.... Where's my stuff..... Where's the chicken congee... Where is- where is all the traditional recipes he should know? I get that making eggs, bacon, and french toast are easy (sometimes) but-- there is other easy to make stuff. I'm not expecting Bi-Han to be headcanoned as some top tier chef but, him knowing some traditional home recipes should be natural thing to him, no? Maybe he learned from his mother, or some other. I think that'd be neat to think about, just simple basic home meals he's learned and makes for himself and rarely, but sometimes, for others. I think all in general, I just really want to see like some proper representation of Bi-Han, or just even Kuai Liang, maybe even Tomas adapting to some of his adoptive family's behaviors while he was raised, like some stuff like how some people can't properly apologize so in form of apology, people mainly serve a plate of fruit as an act of forgiveness rather than outright saying it, or just ANYTHING ELSE.

[blackcultureis]

Whitewashing and why you shouldn't do (or support) it

Disclaimer: This post will specifically address the white washing of Black people and characters.

What is white washing? White washing in the context of fanart is when you take a character of color, usually one with brown/black skin, and either make their skin lighter, give them more Eurocentric features, or both.

Why is it harmful? To explain why this is harmful, I will use one of the first examples of fanart; renaissance paintings of ancient Greek myths. Specifically, artwork featuring Princess Andromeda. Go to your search engine and type in "princess Andromeda". Based on those images, you would never have known that in the original Greek legends, Andromeda was black. So why is she most often depicted as a white woman?

McGrath’s article was definitive in addressing three things: that all the Greek mythographers placed Andromeda as a princess of Ethiopia, that Ovid specifically refers to her dark skin and that artists throughout Western art history frequently omitted to depict her blackness because Andromeda was supposed to be beautiful, and blackness and beauty – for many of them – was dichotomous.

That quote is from this article, and I highly recommend you give it a read. When you whitewash a character, you are perpetuating the idea in the quote above. That this character you like, whether you like them because they're funny or smart or beautiful, cannot be those things and also have black features.

Colorism and whitewashing

I'm going to bring up colorism, because sometimes, people will have a character still look Black, but lighten their skin tone, essentially making a dark skinned character light skinned. That is not okay either.

colorism: prejudice or discrimination against individuals with a dark skin tone, typically among people of the same ethnic or racial group:

Lighter skinned Black people, while still targets of racism, are closer to whiteness than darker skinned Black people, and in some cases face less discrimination. When Black people first started to appear on TV, it was generally lighter skinned ones because that was more acceptable. This article goes more in depth about colorism.

Misogynoir and whitewashing.

Misogynoir is a word coined to describe the unique hatred that black women face. It is the intersection of racism and misogyny.

People may whitewash a female presenting character but not a male presenting character. One trait of misogyny is tying a womans worth to their beauty. When you realize that beauty and blackness were (and still are) seen as antonyms, the issue with this type of whitewashing is made clear.

Texturism and whitewashing

texturism: a form of social injustice, where afro-textured hair or coarse hair types are viewed negatively, often perceived as "unprofessional", "unattractive", or "unclean".

When Black characters were first introduced to media, aspects of them would be changed to heighten their proximity to whiteness and make them more palatable to white audiences. Black women would get perms or silk presses, and Black men would keep their hair cut short and "tidy." This would occur in normal workplaces as well. Black hair has too often been regarded as "unprofessional" or "thuggish."

Note: This does not mean that all Black women with silk presses or perms or all Black men with short hair are trying to heighten their proximity to whiteness, or do not love themselves and their hair.

Changing a Black character's natural hair/curl pattern to be more loosely textured can also be considered white washing, especially when paired with lightened skin. However, it is very nuanced; some people may want to show a character with a sew-in or wearing a wig, or just draw them with straightened hair. It is not always white washing, but it is a good thing to be aware of anyway. This article goes more in depth about texturisim.

How can you help?

Don't create, support, or reblog whitewashed art.

P.S. if anyone wants to come on this post bringing up blackwashing, read this (now updated) post of mine.

[princeboysal]

Dune fans are genuinely the most annoying people ever. I was going to watch the movie until I discovered just how white washed and cultural appropriation the whole movie is. Based on Middle Eastern and North African culture but won't hire any Middle Eastern or North African people in the main cast. It's orientalism its basically just wearing marginalzed and racialized cultures as a costume. Many Middle Eastern and North African people have criticized dune for this. And instead of accepting this they keep trying to gaslight people who point this out. Like No one is saying you are terrible person for liking dune or you can't like it yet you are acting like children instead of accepting valid criticism.

I wish people could be like the twilight fandom when it comes to enjoying work while still accepting valid criticism

[cyanide-sippy-cup]

Middle of the night but I gotta talk about some frustrations. 'Cause you know what pisses me off? The mainstreaming popularization of punk. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing it become more popular and I love seeing people discover themselves and the culture. I mean, I got into it from a young age with RATM, for crying out loud.

The problem is that when something becomes more and more popular, you get a lot of... unsavory types. And I'm not even talking about the Tiktok punks that do it for the fashion and the "cool factor" (ignore how punks weren't considered cool and actually disregarded and disrespected as a group of "radicals" and "unsightly" which is what makes punk punk to begin with) and talk about "posers" but then the moment you ask them about their favorite local band or even their opinions about the BLM protests or Drag Queen Story Hour the real them *cough* bigot *cough* comes out. I'm talking about how everywhere you turn, there's an increasing erase of the culture and history, and it's turned into yet another thing for cis white people to use to make up for their lack of culture.

Punk is based in queerness and blackness. Period. That is an undeniable fact. It is a culture started and rooted by black musicians which then bled into the equally black queer community. It is impossible, when you go through the origins, to separate the three. From the fashion to the music, we owe everything to them.

And it's just like what happened with the gay community. A massively marginalized group, technically allowed to live in society but not allowed to be our true selves. And then, like, you have super famous and historic movements lead by black activists through the 60s to 80s. And progress is finally made. Huge celebration. We're finally allowed in public, we start appearing on TV again. But then fast forward to modern day, and white people, like we've always done, we get our grubby little paws on it. And we scrub at it in all the soap we can until any instance of black or brown is gone. And then we claim it as ours. Everybody acknowledges where it started, but nobody celebrates it. In fact, we put down black people in our community. We appropriate their culture and their language, because stealing your voice is actually our way of celebrating you so you should be happy. We make movies of those movements, and we erase any evidence of them ever having been there.

And it's relatively the same thing here. The more mainstream it gets, the more people are doing it to be performative, the more we erase and cover up the "unseemly" history that makes it so beautiful in the first place.

And, like, I'm white and I'm pissed/tired. I can't imagine how black punks feel. Cause, like, think for a minute. Some group decides they want in but they don't like how it is, they want it their way. The "correct" way. So they begin to "kick out" everybody who they don't want, appropriate everything they like about it, and rewrite and recontextualize the history that made it. Isn't that, like, the textbook definition of fascism? The whole thing we're trying to take down? Like come on.

And to the white punk/gays who read this and got confused or upset. No, I'm not saying there aren't any white punks. No, I'm not saying there weren't white gays from the get go. Nobody is saying you can't be white and punk. The point of this post is, just, be a good person. Respect, acknowledge, celebrate the culture that created this thing we love. The gay community that we know is specifically a product of blackness and black efforts. Stop appropriating them, start learning how to celebrate them properly.

[brazilspill]

Friendly reminder to white people that you need to wash your rice before you cook it.

For the love of sanity, please rinse it several times in cold water before cooking it, I'm begging.

[crsinclair]

I saw the initial tweet about proms in Japan and I decided to finally say something. This has honestly been bothering me for a long while - as a POC that has been white-washed not only by the American government but by my own family, it is legitimately painful to watch as the anime and manga fandom slowly starts to white-wash itself.

If you don't believe me, go watch a popular anime. Turn on the subtitles and listen when they call each other by name. The names don't match up. It's incredibly jarring to listen to one thing and yet read another.

Full thread here if reading the text in the images is too much.

[personal-blog243]

Manufactured racial controversy alert 🙄:

“The Atlantic” used this photo in their article covering a Christian show about the life of Jesus. This photo was taken outdoors on a bright day and some of the actors skin looks a bit lighter because of the bright natural lighting.

However the cast of this show is more racially diverse than this picture above implies. The comments section was full of trolls and bots accusing POC of being white when they are not 🙄.

Here are some more accurate looking cast photos with better lighting that better shows their skin.

The show DID make a point to cast middle eastern and Jewish and Black actors. Many POC can be lighter skinned and it doesn’t change their race or make them “white”. 🙄

I work with several Egyptian people and yes some of them have lighter skin than others and that’s ok! Many people are mixed race and that doesn’t make them fully “white” 🙄 I have also met many lighter skinned Latin Americans and native Americans who would probably look like that under that sunlight.

The characters are supposed to be mostly Jewish and the Jewish community is very diverse and they don’t all have the same skin and that’s ok!

Don’t fall for trolls and bots trying to manufacture outrage and false divisions and controversy. Also don’t call people “white” when they are not!

Yes, racism and white washing are still a big problem in the television industry! Yes, racism is still a problem in the American evangelical church and in many Christian communities throughout history! I absolutely agree that many depictions of Jesus have been a bit “white washed”. I’m NOT here to excuse racism!

I just don’t think that applies to this show in particular in my opinion. This is one of the few portrayals of Jesus that isn’t white washed and some people can’t appreciate that because they are falling for fake outrage because of a bad picture.

It’s taking a LOT of self control for me to not feed the trolls and get into a comment section argument right now in this Atlantic article. 🙄

Imagine looking these Arabic and Semitic men in the face and saying “you are white because you sat in bright sunlight once”. 🙄

[papirouge]

i'd never take seriously the opinion of an anti feminism if I wanted to have an honest take about what feminism is

but when it comes with Christianism? atheist and anti Christian weirdos LOVE to shove their opinion and speak over actual Christians thinking theirs is inherently more enlightened than everyone else in the room. and the weirdest thing is that the person who sparked the conversation will find actually consider them relevant to define what Christianism is..??

that's why so many people have such a low level understanding of Christianity and keep rehashing the same stale arguments in their stupid echo chambers

[pollenallergie]

there were empanadillas at the function today and like!!! i only had two but!! i wish i would’ve had more because!!! they tasted just like the ones my aunt makes (and she uses my abuelita’s recipe)!!! so they literallyyyy tasted like my childhood!!!!! one thing about me, i am a fiend for some fried dough with meat & peppers & other goodies stuffed inside it!!! like num num num, yes please!!!

[reasoningdaily]

On a recent episode of Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta, Dominican-Puerto Rican reality TV star Erica Mena screamed “You monkey, you blue monkey” to Jamaican dancehall singer, songwriter, and actor Spice. The animalized anti-Black slur never seems too far from the lips of racially ambiguous, mestiza, mixed-race, and other non-Black Latinas who find success ironically because of Black women. Many people of alleged color use their proximity to Blackness as a ruse to gain success while harboring anti-Black values. 

This isn’t the first time we have seen non-Black Latinas, who may claim Afro-Latinidad at convenience, call dark-skinned unambiguously Black women an anti-Black slur in a public forum. It’s a signature and age-old move. In 2015, Mena herself reportedly called club promoters “Black monkeys” after not showing up to a scheduled nightclub appearance. Similarly, in 2019, self-professed Afro-Latina Evelyn Lozada did something similar to her Basketball Wives castmate, athlete Ogom “OG” Chijindu, using a monkey GIF to describe her on Instagram and repeatedly referring negatively to her looks.

In many of these public displays of anti-Blackness, the conflict is centered on a Black man “picking” the unambiguously Black woman over the so-called “exotic” non-Black woman. These are common tactics that I and many other unambiguous Black women have experienced at the hands of non-Black Latinas, including mestizas and light-skinned, racially ambiguous, self-proclaimed Afro-Latinas. And many of these non-Black Latinas use the categorization of Afrolatinidad as a get-out-of-jail card when they co-opt Blackness.

“

"Many people of alleged color use their proximity to Blackness as a ruse to gain success while fostering anti-Black values. "

dash harris

”

In 2019,Love and Hip Hop cast member Cyn Santana appeared on Angela Yee's Lip Service podcast controversially saying she prefers Black men and Black men prefer Latina women. “Y’all can keep the Puerto Rican men. I’m good,” she said, assuming she was referring to non-Black Puerto Rican men. She added: “I do Black guys all day. Black men cater to us Spanish [sic: Latina] girls especially.” When Yee suggested she would “get in trouble with the Black girls,” Santana, a mestiza of mixed Dominican and Salvadoran descent, said, “I didn’t mean it like that, but Black girls gonna take it personal and be like, uh-uh,” inserting just enough mockery to ensure the audience that her worldview is steeped in anti-Black tropes. 

Even more to that point of wide-spread misogynoir stereotyping, Santana later apologized on the talk show The Real, saying she “irresponsibly repeated something that I heard my entire life.” I believe her. I've long seen and heard this messaging in Latine communities. The truth Santana pointed to cannot be glossed over. These women date and procreate with Black men and, in turn, raise Black children, as Mena is doing, and I wonder how they treat those children through their lens of depreciating Blackness. One way is by treating them as a shield to claim they are not anti-Black.

“

"In many of these public displays of anti-Blackness, the conflict is centered on a Black man “picking” the unambiguously Black woman over the so-called “exotic” non-Black woman."

dash harris

”

This is tied to the misogynoir phenomena of Black men who put non-Black women on pedestals, prizing, pursuing, and “preferring” non-Black Latinas and white women and even defending them when they do dehumanize Black women in public media forums. This “preference” cannot be divorced from its anti-Black power dynamics and its cishetero white-centering patriarchy that Black men, among people in general, have been indoctrinated under and in turn perpetuate and harm Black women with. Black women seem to be where their targets intersect and lock in as their punching bag. 

Mena’s chagrin, and subsequent table-flipping that caused the melee, was because Safaree, a rapper and Mena’s ex-husband and father to her children, “chose” to care more about a woman who indeed is not his wife nor his children’s mother. But what really got Mena to reveal herself was that it was a dark-skinned Black woman, someone who in her eyes was undeserving of the adoration and worship she, a non-Black woman, is entitled to, so she had been taught. This subverted social order infraction could not go by Mena without a slur to bring Black women back to the intended subalterned place. She wanted the guarantee of preference that she was promised.

“

"Non-Black women like her have been promised their whole lives that they deserve love and respect, withheld from Black women and over Black women in favor of women who look like her."

dash harris

”

It is a privileged position where Mena is most comfortable because she believes in the zero-sum game of anti-Black hierarchy. This hierarchy keeps her lights on. Mena’s social currency rides in her non-Blackness and her proximity to whiteness relative to Black women. Non-Black women like her have been promised their whole lives that they deserve love and respect, withheld from Black women and over Black women in favor of women who look like her. She clamors for and is enabled by the male gaze and, furthermore, is emboldened and protected by Black men who seek refuge from their own internalized anti-Blackness in the arms of women “with less baggage and attitude” than “the Black girls.” But, as the routine racialized aggressions these women create show, even this is a myth. Together, the bond of Black men who “prefer” non-Black women and non-Black women who revel this preference replicates white pathology and notions that Black women should remain subjugated under them both. 

So many non-Black Latinas, including mestizas, mixed-race, and racially ambiguous women, have launched and sustained their careers from Black media and specifically because of Black women, like Mona Scott-Young, the creator of the Love and Hip-Hop franchise, and Shaunie O’Neal, creator of Basketball Wives. Black media gives them access into Black spaces by their “POC” proximity for them to inevitably expose their anti-Blackness, because you can only hide your ideologies for so long. Now many are calling for Mena to finally be fired from the TV series. 

“

"Unambiguously Black women, whether Latina or not, are racialized as Black wherever we go and do not have the escape-hatch of racial ambiguity that other non-Black Afro-Latinas do."

dash harris

”

Recently, reality TV star Joseline Hernandez called out her College Hill classmate Amber Rose for building her career from Black media but “catering to white people.” Hernandez, who is of Puerto Rican descent, identifies as a Black woman and not Afro-Latina, a distinction that seems to be even more necessary with each passing day. Unambiguously Black women, whether Latina or not, are racialized as Black wherever we go and do not have the escape-hatch of racial ambiguity that other non-Black Afro-Latinas do. 

Hemispherically, Black women are the butts of “jokes” for non-Black, mixed-race, bi-racial, and racially ambiguous women. In 2016, Geisha Montes de Oca (who was 2008's Miss World Dominican Republic) mocked Black Dominican singer Amara La Negra on a popular variety show by wearing an Afro wig, butt pads, and blackface. In 2013, Black Brazilian actor Nayara Justino was dethroned from her title of Miss Globaleza carnival queen in favor of a light-skinned bi-racial woman after public outcry of Justino being “too Black.” She was also subjected to violent anti-Black attacks online that negatively impacted her health.

These viral reality TV moments unveil how anti-Blackness and misogyny are like a rite of passage for many non-Black Latinas. And these are only the recorded examples. As Santana noted on The Real, oftentimes, these are the messages non-Black Latinas were raised with and didn’t question or resist because they benefited from them. She noted that when she made her own viral anti-Black comments she was in her early 20s and that now, “27 with a son,” she knows better. But does age and motherhood disentangle anti-Blackness from someone’s core? It does not. Mena and Lozado are proof-positive it does not, because it takes a process of birthing yourself anew to address and eradicate this structural ill.

[anxietyfrappuccino]

i've had bad dreams, one including death, another including the guy who harassed my mom and i a few months back

i drop the phone i've had for only a week, it cracks on the inside

my friend decides to say homophobic shit in front of me , then asked me if i had questions

my family doesn't give a shit about my boundaries

i go to a white holiday dressed as a mexican fiesta

i throw the finger at a physical representation of the patriarchy but turns out it wasn't my best idea

my family doesn't give a shit continued, but mainly by my sister

white holiday celebration continues

i got shushed and it hurt my heart so i left the room

i still can't go anywhere without other people bec i'm mentally fucked

i am angry with god when our relationship was just getting good/better

in conclusion i am an angry cat in human form and i have no where to direct my emotions i need therapy help

[sporkberries]

idk if this is a hot take but i think portraying people of colour and of different races/background as all the same in media is just white washing. it’s OKAY for people to have different lived experiences, how you grow up changes your life and backstory and thats okay to represent.