#ethnic slurs

[authorgirl0131]

Out of curiosity, what should we do if referring to someone named G*psy? I know it's a slur and the word shouldn't be used by those who aren't Romani, but do we still avoid saying it if it's someone's name?

Genuinely asking

[alanfromrochester]

the reverse of "pardon my French" mocking *them* for swearing?

Found a list of terms for British people and these are my favorite

[rebellum]

The whole transandrophobia discussion thing is weird bc it feels like it's a bunch of poc and jewish trans people being like "here are my experiences of how specifically being MASCULINE had affected me, and the discrimination and violence I experienced based on that. And here is how that relates to me being a racial/ethnic minority"

And then a few loud white trans people going "ohhh you wanna be oppressed so bad you *slur*. This is why there aren't any poc in your movement it's because REAL poc understand intersectionality"

[winteriron-trash]

rdj the (whitewashed) electric boogaloo

This is a reminder to everyone who's excited about RDJ's casting as Doctor Doom that this casting is whitewashing. Victor Von Doom is a Romani character and has been a Romani character since his introduction in the 1960s. (Fantastic Four Annual #2 [1964]) Not only that, but his Roma identity and the persecution he and his family faced due to it is integral to his character, it is what forms his identity. (Books of Doom by Ed Brubaker) Even if on the off chance this casting is meant to not be Victor but instead be some variant of Tony or whomever else becoming Doctor Doom, it is damaging to the character to rob him of that important cultural background. Doctor Doom does not exist without that history. Fans have been pushing hard to cast Doom as a Romani actor for years, especially since the MCU has whitewashed other Romani characters. (Wanda, Pietro, etc) This casting is not a celebration moment, it's fucking heartbreaking that the MCU repeatedly ignores the important and nuanced cultural backstories of characters.

I know I can't change anybody's mind on whether or not you want to be excited about RDJ's return to the MCU. But I do think at the very least you should be mad that the MCU is baiting us all and destroying nuanced and interesting characters for the sake of self-referential easter eggs and nostalgia bait. Because that's what it is. Feel how you'd like to feel about RDJ's return, but personally, this is soul-sucking. I had such a deep love for the MCU as a teenager, it was obviously something incredibly formative to me, especially Tony Stark. This isn't recreating what I fell in love with the MCU for. This is turning a well-planned and artistic storyline of adaptations into cheap cash grabs and fan service. Because, I think we're past the point of being able to call the MCU an adaptation of anything. They can use existing characters' names and powers, but to say they're being properly adapted is laughable.

This is not an adaptation of Doctor Doom. This is RDJ the Electric Boogaloo because Marvel's fear of losing the interest of dedicated MCU fans overrides their willingness to tell stories that are genuine to the characters. I don't know what there is to be excited about that. The MCU has lost its authenticity and aside from a few projects, feels heartless. Every movie is a copy of a copy. This announcement isn't something celebratory, it feels like a death knell of a cinematic universe that's so desperate to cling to relevancy it's resorting to nostalgia for a character/actor who hasn't even been dead for a decade. We're not getting anything new, we're just rinsing and repeating the same song and dance.

I get it. I love Tony Stark, his death destroyed me and I to this day, rue the ending he got in Endgame. It misunderstood his arc and it robbed him of a satisfying conclusion. But the solution to that isn't dragging the corpse out of the grave five years later to whitewash an existing character with rich and interesting nuance, just to forcibly tie his existence in the MCU to Tony. Whether he is a variant or not. Why would you want someone else's fave's legacy to be destroyed simply so your fave's legacy can go on? Hell, if we were really all so hellbent on the return of RDJ and/or Tony to the MCU, we have the multiverse for a reason. There were other ways to do it that didn't whitewash and ruin someone else. This just. Isn't something to be happy about.

[zilodak]

Seein your beloved Hussein OC made me happy for how common Arabophobia is in Turkey 😭 I wish people could see that both Arabophobia and Turkophobia often overlaps each other, holding hands basically

It's perplexing to me because older generation Turks and fascist young Turks have it drilled into their heads that immigration and equal rights for other ethnic groups means dividing the country, when truly they're the ones dividing it. As with all attempted ethno-states, people ignore that there have never been, and will never be, such a thing as an ethno-state.

It's even more perplexing that with the economy down the shit hole, these same Turks dream of going to western Europe for a better life, rarely thinking that this is the same treatment they will receive there.

[unovaslankiite]

Prolly gonna be my one and only rwde post (cus the fanbase is rancid and I'm not rlly a rwby fan, just a person who watches the show): some of you rwby fans are too comfortable using your queerness as a shield to silence BIPOC voices about the racist writing and your 'precious' bigoted CRWBY. You guys unironically act/think that just because you have to deal with queerphobia; you are IMMUNE to being bigoted yourself and you are INCAPABLE of parroting bigoted beliefs. Cus I know there will be a dumbass ant1-rwde posters who will try to drown out this post by saying its 'lies from the EVIL RWDE!!!': You would rather weaponize your queerness to bash on BIPOC voices, while claiming to care about our voices. You would rather be complicit with the racist writers and their racist writing, just because your racist writers gave you a queer ship. There is no shame nor issue in projecting the abused you suffered onto the characters, however you refuse to see through the characters and their writing through a BIPOC lens. You do not get the right to impose your perspective of the characters at the expense of BIPOC voices, you do not get to twist our voices to be alt-right bigots because we called out RWBY's rampant racism. You do not get the right to say you give a shit about BIPOC and have #BLM in your bio when you fervently defend your bigoted company. You do not get to pretend to care about racism when you buy merch off of your bigoted company. My fellow BIPOC (especially the queer BIPOC): why are you guys so comfortable dismissing your fellow poc about their discomfort with RWBY's racist writing? BIPOC are not a monolith with the same opinions about racism in media; but some of you guys are weirdly comfortable with turning a blind eye to your fellow BIPOC getting dogpiled by the white fandom. We can and will disagree, you not agreeing as a BIPOC about RWBY's racist writing is not what I take issue with. The issue lies within you upholding the racial colourblindness in the fandom; like how the fandom was ok with throwing the racism under the bus in favour of queerness, you are ok with throwing your BIPOC peers under the bus for white queerness. Sincerely, a POC who has been watching the fandoms rampant racism problem ever since 2019.

[suguruslut]

When Dick gets in a fight at school after being called a racial slur, Bruce dives into researching about how to help his child deal with racism, learning a lot about his son's identity (and his own) in the process.

[andthespidersfrommars]

you might not think it’s hard to be a soc fan artist on tumblr, but let me tell you about the time I called someone out for drawing inej with light skin, so they blocked me and then wrote a long post about me that I couldn’t see, along with colour samples taken from my art as examples of how inej is “too dark” in them, and then they end the post with “I’m disappointed in you” 💀

[tariah23]

🗿

My sis and I used to talk about this sometimes if I’m being honest. I never went around calling nb ppl slurs but I know that if you did as a black person, the first thing that nbs would do is look at you like you’re crazy or feign ignorance when you point out the contradiction of them thinking that it’s okay to casually throw around slurs at black people because they believe it to be so funny, term of endearment or whatever tf.

[fattributes]

Genuinely surprised when this blog gets anonymous hate and death threats. Like, I have unknowingly angered you enough to hold your attention but not enough for you to want to include your name behind your insults. If your takes were good, they wouldn't have to be sent anonymously. Thank you for confirming that I have excellent opinions and an audience to share them with. Enjoy your block; fascism still sucks.

[perfectlysunny02]

because i’m fed up and in the business of calling people out-

you can dislike eddie/ryan and not be racist about it. hope this helps.

[brick-van-dyke]

The more I learn about the history of the middle east in general, the more I realise that the "Israel-Palestine conflict" is actually just a group killing their own fellow shared ethnic group who are "too brown".

Hebrews and Arabs both originate from Phoenicians, aka "Abraham's descendents" according to their respective oral stories and passed on histories. They are from the same place and people. However, there is a narrative that twists this and claims that Arabs were "always an outside force that invaded", when the various groups within that ethnicity always had their share of cooperation and conflict in various stages of history. Just like, say, the various groups in France. They were of the same group and no particular ethnicity had no more of a "claim" to the land than the other, they just had their beef and eventually integrated.

So when I see "but the Arabs are colonisers" I can't help but ask; what is a colonisers to you? Seriously. If colonisation means "any conflict in the past between a shared group from the same place" every single group would be colonisers. There's no such thing as "an innocent conflict" where atrocities weren't committed by either side. So please get that out of your head if you want to say "but the Arabs did X, Y, Z to the Hebrews so it's colonisation and they don't belong in A, B or C areas". That's just not how colonisation works. It's like calling TERF or cis a slur when they're not. Conflict between the same people from the same area is, yeah, a conflict hit not colonisation. However, a people who are from a completely different place who want to erase an ethnic group and take over their culture, erase their history and get rid of their physical features? Yeah, that's what colonisation is. It's genocide with the aim to erase a specific group or culture and take it and the land over. For example, the British in the Middle East.

The problem with calling Arabs "colonisers" is not only is it completely historically wrong, they're from the same place and have the same origins as the Hebrews, but they (like Palestinian Jews) have been their since before the British came. Compared to European Jews who came later on after having lived in Europe (and became European as that is genuinely a part of their culture and ethnicity as well and shouldn't be erased or forgotten, that's also cultural erasure of Germanic, Polish, etc traditions passed on) and, sure, do have origins there *as well* but it needs to be understood that they, specifically Zionists, are a part of the British colonial project aimed at killing *both* Arabs and Jews. The point isn't to help Jews against a colonisers from the first few centuries (sorry to tell you everyone, but no, the Ottoman Empire, Baylon and the Pharaohs literally do not exist anymore, like how Italy isn't the Roman Empire by default because that's where Rome is), but a group of people who've just been living there for the past few centuries and generations who just want to live. The problem is, they haven't been allowed that and propaganda keeps being pushed that completely jumps around historical facts like, for example, Jews (ethnically speaking) were not always Jews but the Ancient Hebrews, aka, Phoenicians, aka where Arabs came from ethically. They are the same people, just who moved to different areas and developed different cultures and languages. Sort of like, you know, every other nation with specific dialects for specific regions and different cultures and folk stories depending on where you go.

The point is, so much of Jewish history is actively being erased to "protect the Jews" by...commuting cultural genocide of the Jews and Arabs. It ignores the actual impact of Nazism within Israel's formation and history, how much it influenced policy, how Jews who were "too visibly Phoenicians" aka appeared too Jewish or arabic or middle eastern in appearance were deemed as "weaker" and "lesser" for my surviving the holocaust and used as a reason to deny rights to both Jews and Arabs who were too visibly Semitic. It ignores how antisemetic Israel is towards Jewishness and how utterly antisemetic Islamophobia is because they are literally from the same origin and, yes, hatred and fear of one does carry into hatred and fear of the other. So much of the propaganda and denialism of history happening right now is a direct response to dear and hatred of "big noses", "brown skin" and people deemed as too middle eastern because they, just like in World War II, World War I and beforehand, antisemetism is the backbone of British imperialism and conquest of the middle east (yes, this also means a targeting of Arabs and Jews as people who look a specific way). And yes I'm annoyed and yes this is a ramble that's probably not very coherent, but damn I'm so sick and tired of misinformation and the twisting of everything to suit this narrative of "Arabs versus Jews" as if they aren't both just Semites who are being collectively oppressed, erased and reinvented by the west to suit western ends.

[maya-caffrey]

is it just me or has casual racism against desi people become increasingly rampant on social media lately

[citrus-cactus]

Has Jonathan been enjoying his trip so far. Did he like Vienna. I’m glad him knowing a little bit of German paid off. Is he wearing a scarf that Mina knitted for him (the answer is yes, constantly. She chose red so he’d be easier for her to spot in a crowded train station. NO OTHER REASON). Does he mention her every chance he gets. Did he get the impletata recipe even though he was in a rush. How’s the weather. Is he keeping dry. I’m sorry the paprika didn’t agree with him and he had bad dreams. Yes I read Dracula last year but I need to know that he’s having a good time so far and I just want him to be happy. Does he know how proud I am of him (the answer is no, he does not) 😭

[notes-from-sarah]

When Magneto became Romani

These three pages were included in an X-Men anthology book titled Magneto #0, The Twisting of a Soul by Fabian Nicieza. It was published in 1993 and seems to be the first, or even only place where Magneto's Sinti background is mentioned. This issue is comprised of two short stories about Magneto's background written by Chris Claremont in the 1980's, plus these three additional pages which contradict everything previously written on Magneto's backstory. Unlike the DC universe, Marvel's mainline books are all in the same continuity since the beginning of Marvel Comics in the 60's. Every writer must follow what is established by the ones before. Of course, retcons will happen from time to time, but that's the idea in general. These three pages represent an almost whole-cloth retcon of everything written about Magneto's backstory to this point. For almost 17 years ('75-91), Chris Claremont developed a well defined backstory for Magneto, some of which is included in the very volume that these three pages come from, and Nicieza ignores all of it.

(Content warning for a word that is often considered a slur against the Romani people, I am quoting directly from the text)

Let's examine some of Nicieza's claims:

Pg 1 - "The man who would become Magneto was born Erik Magnus Lehnsherr, to a gypsy family of Sinte desent"

Fact: Magneto is Jewish, which goes completely unmentioned here, and has never before been suggested to be Sinti. I don't know why this author decided to erase his Jewish background and make him Sinti, but nowhere does Nicieza say anything about Magneto's Jewishness, instead casting him solely as Sinti, born to a Sinti family. The illustration even shows him with two pierced ears, an open shirt and a scarf around his neck to drive home the stereotypical "Romani" look.

Also, many Romani people are religiously Catholic/christian.

Pg 2 - "After Danzig was annexed to Nazi Germany in 1939, the young man then named Erik -- along with thousands of other gypsies -- was shifted to a work camp in the city of Auschwitz. We all know what happened then. It is -- or should be -- indelibly branded on our collective consciousness. Genocide. Extermination. Not only of the Jewish race. But also of the Poles, the gypsies, the homosexuals, the intellectuals. Anyone the 'Master Race' felt was disposable... Lehnsherr lost his parents and sister during his imprisonment at Auschwitz."

Fact: Magneto's sister and parents were murdered outside of their town/village by the Nazi Death Squads called the Einsatzgruppen. Magneto was the only member of his family sent to Auschwitz, the rest were murdered and buried in a mass grave.

Additionally, while many groups suffered under the Nazi regime, the genocide of the Jews was specific, deliberate, and at a scale not experienced by the other groups mentioned. For more information, read up on The Final Solution. There was also never a specific attempt to murder all Poles, that's just a lazy attempt to universalize something that was not universally experienced. People can suffer in different ways and it's a disservice to their stories if you attempt to blend them all into one homogeneity.

Also, why use the term "work camp" instead of calling it what it was? It was a Nazi death camp, no need to say it nicely.

Pg 2 - "But he gained something in the liberation of the camp in 1945, as well. He gained hope in the form of a wife, a woman named Magda. In 1946, they took up residence in the Ukrainian city of Vinnitsa... where Magda, gave birth to a daughter they named Anya."

Fact: Magda gave birth to Anya in a small village in the Polish Carpathians. Magneto, Magda and Anya lived in that village for some time, most likely 3-6 years, before moving to Vinnitsa.

Additionally, Magneto was around 15ish in 1945, while nothing disputes this claim directly, I'm not sure he was married at 15 years old.

Pg 2 - "But Lehnsherr had learned something else about himself in Auschwitz, something which was becoming more apparent and more frightening to him everyday -- he learned he was a mutant"

Fact: Magneto didn't discover his powers until he was in Vinnitsa. He didn't have a name for it or consider himself a mutant till much later.

Pg 2 - "When Anya was tragically killed in an arsonist's fire, Lehnsherr lashed out at the villagers who refused to help save her"

Fact: Magneto was prevented from saving his daughter by secret police who were trying to arrest him for an earlier altercation he'd had with someone. He did not "lash out" just because nobody would help, he lashed out because his daughter burned to death in front of him while he was actively being restrained and prevented from helping her.

Also, it's never mentioned that it's an arson attack that caused the fire. I don't know where Nicieza is getting this.

Pg 2 - "In his misery, in his loneliness, he went to Israel -- to save his own soul. He chose to work with survivors of the camps, and in turn, helped them regain theirs."

Fact: Magneto went to Israel because he was Jewish and he had nothing left after Magda left and his daughter died. He helped other concentration camp survivors because he knew what they had been through and could help them.

Also, why is this author having such a hard time calling a concentration camp a concentration camp?

For further information on his time in Israel, read Uncanny X-Men #161 by Chris Claremont.

Pg 3 - "Lehnsherr had taken to calling himself Magnus... as if by choosing his middle name, he could bring some semblance of balance and simplicity to his haunted life."

Fact: Magnus was the only name Magneto was ever given. There was never any suggestion that he was hiding his "real" name when going by Magnus and he is referred to solely by Magnus or Magneto throughout the books. I don't know why he suddenly needed a new name in the 90's but Magneto's name was Magnus for more than a decade.

Pg 3 - "I can separate Magnus the man from Magneto the Mutant Crusader. And please note my choice of words, for I have valid reasons to label Magneto Crusader and not Dictator."

Fact: Crusader is such a loaded Christian term, it's very strange for an Israeli Jewish woman to use it about another Jewish person.

Final thoughts: I'm not against comics taking a character in a new direction or developing them in some new way. What I don't understand is why Nicieza decided to rewrite Magneto's backstory so that he would be Sinti instead of Jewish, so that the chronicle of events in his life would happen in a completely different way, and why he literally ignored all the pages that came before the three he wrote in the same issue!

If you like Magneto as Sinti, that's awesome! It has the potential to be a really cool backstory for a reboot of the character, but also remember for nearly 20 years, Magneto was Jewish and it's not wrong for that version of the character to exist without the Sinti addition. I'll also note that the current version of the Character, the Max Eisenhardt version, is also not Romani. It's one of those things that has been done and undone a few times, much like everything about the character since the Claremont era.

Also, this post should in no way be interpreted as me downplaying the suffering of the Romani people during the Holocaust. Their stories deserve to be told and characters ought to be created to respectfully tell that part of the story. What happened to the Romani people was tragic and should not be forgotten. It also deserves to be told in a more thorough and respectful way than just taking an existing character, changing one or two bits of info about him and saying that's good enough. Nowhere does this Sinti background have any meaning for Magneto, it seems more like a random fact someone added because they were bored of him being Jewish. Magneto's Jewishness has meaning for him as written by Chris Claremont, whereas Nicieza and other writers in the 90's makes no mention of the Sinti background having any influence on the character. It has no effect on his life and seems to be a change made for the sake of it. Both Sinti and Jewish characters deserve better than that.

To read more about how Magneto has been portrayed in comics read my Magneto Biographical Timeline covering the years 1963-1991.

[smonk-wonk]

how are you a holocaust survivor if you're POC?

I'm not a Holocaust survivor I'm 25?

I'm gonna guess you mean descended from Holocaust survivors & victims. In which case it's really sad that you think this way firstly? POC and non Jewish people did in fact die during the holocaust and many were targeted for not fitting the Nazis' idea of the "superior Aryan race".

From The Holocaust Encyclopedia: "When Adolf Hitler and the Nazis came to power in 1933, there were several thousand Black people living in Germany. The Nazi regime discriminated against them because the Nazis viewed Black people as racially inferior. During the Nazi era (1933–1945), the Nazis used racial laws and policies to restrict the economic and social opportunities of Black people in Germany. They also harassed, imprisoned, sterilized, and murdered an unknown number of Black people."

Also contrary to what some believe, and this may sound farfetched and I hope you're sitting down but bear with me- some people are actually more than one race. Some people are POC and white. We call this being biracial. Or in grade school, being an "Oreo". A mutt if they really want to dehumanize you

But while my relatives weren't targeted for their skin color as they were white, many people were. Black Germans and other POC did exist, were murdered and traumatized, and have passed down that generational trauma. Just as other persecuted populations even if it was much less it was no less a part of the genocide and ethnic cleansing.