#sorry if any southerners follow me but i have to be a hater

[aboutyoutoo]

not to be a hater but i forgot how annoying it is to hear southern (british) accents everywhere when i'm at uni

[clartidk123]

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Creator of A Innocent Man, My FNAF swap au! credit for @muratandalina for giving me inspiration for it!

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Also DNI Michael Afton Apologists, i unironically hate him

Interact Michael haters too

Welcome: I am Hiyam Shehab from Gaza. 🍉 I support a family of 6 people. My husband, Muhammad Shehab, his father, mother, and my children (Zain and Yahya). We have a gofundme campaign that I created to protect my family and get them out of the danger of war in Gaza. We live in very difficult circumstances. Can you help me financially or by publishing a link to my campaign, scheduling it, and publishing it on your pages on a daily basis🙏 Link to the video of my children 🍉Zain and Yahya🍉👇 https://www.tumblr.com/zeanyahya3/757780878150746112?source=share Please watch the video until the end. If you reblog my story and posts with your followers, pin my story to your blog, repost the story and schedule it every day, or donate +10 euros, this will help me and speed up my reaching my goal, especially since the Rafah crossing will return to work soon and it is the only exit for Gaza and for my family, and there is no Sufficient time to collect donations 🙏. My dear, I trust you, so I reach out to you and beg you. I want you to consistently share my campaign on your blog, schedule it, post my story daily, and pin the post to your blog. If you don't have money, you can post the campaign as a form of help. I have children and I want to get them out of Gaza. My husband has a father and mother who are sick and need treatment. My husband and I fear war and the imminent death of my family. I hope you will share my posts and I am sure my campaign will progress faster. We don't have enough time Thank you my friend 🌹

Please do not send me asks for donations

Here's why:

I have NO money to give you

I'm not a popular enough blog that I will give you any reach

I am a minor, and most of my followers are too

It makes me feel extremely guilty

Seeing pictures of injuries or hospitals etc are triggering for me (which are in most intro posts for this sort of thing)

They are always worded in a way that makes me feel like I am a murderer if I don't donate

It makes me feel uncomfortable

I said I don't want them, and my boundaries should be respected

I can't tell what is a bot and what isn't

I get a lot of spam from this. It is disappointing to see 10 new asks in my inbox just to be the same ask for donations over and over

Please, just respect the fact that I have said this.

Edits below (probably for the best if you read them too)

Edit: To all the people reblogging this, I'm sorry you have had to deal with this too. And yes, you can put this in your pinned post! Stay safe <3

Edit 2: I am pro Palestine and want to do everything I can to help but I'm not financially or mentally well enough to do much. I'm not in support of these people dying. Also, this post isn't just about Palestine. It's about ALL asks for donations. I'm not doing favouritism or racism. I just can't deal with it. Don't harass me for expressing boundaries.

Edit 3: Yes, this post might seem controversial. But I did literally make this for my own personal experience and didn't expect it to get more than 12 notes or so. You can agree with this post, pin this post, reblog this post, I don't care really. But don't add opposing views because quite frankly, it's none of your business. It's not my problem and I didn't mean for this post to get so many notes. Edit 2 mostly covered what I'm trying to say here, but don't use the number of notes as an excuse to fight me. I just want a peaceful Tumblr experience. Also, if you are reblogging this, don't trauma dump. I keep notifications on for this post so that I can block people harassing me before shit escalates, so I can see every reblog. You can screenshot and repost if you want to talk about your problems, but honestly its no better seeing people saying "I'm bankrupt and I just got kicked out by my family. I also have a history of abuse and those images are so triggering that I want to die". That doesn't help me. Make your own post to say that. Please

DO NOT INTERACT:

Pedophiles/MAPs/NOMAPs

Proshippers

Racists

LGBT+phobic

Terfs

New FNAF hater

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Just too say. Im very cheesy. So you will see not canon compliant stuff in my blog. Like Horror, Geno and Nightmare. I absolutely mutilated their canon personalities, so please if you dont like them that way, dont see my utmv content. And Springtrap and Deliah content.

[viseralantlers]

old friend (c!karl jacobs x reader)

takes place in episode 5 of tales ! The wild west one !

warnings: Injury, swearing, character death

Request: nope!

note: using Kit as the alternate name to avoid confusion and follow how the time travel thing works kinda !!!! If you don’t like it feel free to pick another one and fill it in ! I was mostly trying to keep it gender-neutral !! Sorry if it makes it difficult to understand : (

John led Karl around the small town to pick up people to help stop the hostile bandits he had the pleasure to meet when he first entered the saloon just a few hours ago. Now an eccentric band of characters were leaving William’s shop to head to their last stop, the bakery. 

“Alright, so this is Kit!” John spoke with a slight drawl as Karl watched hesitantly as a head peaked up from behind the counter that had been covered in fresh loaves of bread. Karl paused at the sight, it was y/n. It couldn’t be, they had died on doomsday. He felt frozen to his spot as he studied their every move. Karl knew deep down that this wasn’t y/n. He’d seen these past versions, relatives of sorts. of his friends, but he’d never seen anyone that had looked like y/n. It had always been sapnap or technoblade, it was as if y/n died not only in the present but in every past he traveled to.

“Huh” they said as they wiped the flour from their hands on a black apron that had been tied around their neck and torso, stepping around to the group. 

“Hey, Kit!” John was cut off as y/n jumped into a question.

“John, I thought you already picked up your stock for this week?”  John scratched the back of his neck feeling Percy’s stare digging into the back of his head due to his newly revealed spending habits. Y/n, now Kit, continued talking before abruptly pausing when they finally noticed the crowd that had accumulated in their small bakery. “What’s all this about?” They said with a hint of anxiety slipping into their voice.

“Nothing to be worried about!” Karl jumped into action at the sign of y/n’s trepidation “We just wanted to ask if you wanted to help us take down those old democrat haters.” Karl nervously laughed.

“Oh! Yea, for sure bucko, I hate those guys as much as the next one of y’all.” They smile, a steady joyful expression breaking their former nervous demeanor. Karl felt strangely sick at the sight, at how much it reminded him of his old friend, or more so crush, before their passing. Though he also noted the change in your speech as a strong southern accent slipped in every once in a while, even using the word y’all.

“Good to hear, Kit!” John said happily as y/n and William shared a small conversation talking about stock and sales in the recent weeks. Karl trailed behind the group as he watched y/n converse with the crowd, their face filled with a wide smile, even daring to talk with Crops as if he wasn’t a convicted cannibal. They seemed as kind as ever, as an addicting presence as they used to be when the two lived together in L’manberg.

“Hey Karl!” y/n practically beamed at him as he passed them on the wooden prime path as tommy affectionately called it. “Niki and I made this new bakery together wanna come check it out!” They singsonged already reaching to grab at Karl’s sleeve. They smelled like freshly baked bread, their face dusted with a soft blush from the exertion of baking.

“Yea, sure!” Karl granted them his hand letting y/n pull him in to waste an entire day tasting pastries and sweets. He went home that night with flour handprints on his back and a warm feeling in his chest. 

“Great shot!” Karl was pulled out of his trance as he watched Michael whiff the target by a few feet. Shaking his head he studied each member shoot with varying success. Though what really caught his eye was an aim that only rivaled y/n’s own coming from who John had called Kit, the baker that smiled exactly as y/n had every time he whispered a bordering on senseless joke into their ear on party island. He struggled to solidify the name Kit in his head as he watched Kit stick out their tongue as they focused their aim and hit a perfect bullseye. Kit smiled to themselves before they followed the party to the tents surrounding a warm crackling fire.

“Hey, Kit, right? Sorry I’m just never very good with names.” Karl said as he settled down beside the sweet-smelling baker. 

“Yep!” They chirped with a relaxed face as they studied the flicking fire as it reached up towards the open sky.  “Need something?” They asked turning to Karl. Karl blushed at the eye contact not knowing why he started the conversation in the first place.

“No, no, no,,, uh nothing, I just wanted to say good shooting back there I guess.” He laughed to himself playing with the ends of his sleeves.

“Thank you very much, kind stranger! Just a little hobby I picked up after they built that old shooting range. You know, I don’t think I ever caught your name back in my store?”

“It’s Karl.”

“Karrlllllllll” Kit drew out with a goofy face focusing on the l “Pretty name!” Karl felt stuck in time as the interaction mirrored one he had had with y/n.

“Kaaarrrrrrllllllll! Did I ever tell you your name is pretty?” Karl looked at y/n confused.

“No, but ,,,, I wouldn't quite call it that.” He blushed looking down at his feet. 

“I would.” y/n nodded affirmatively “cause it’s Karl, not Carl, it’s pretty,,,,,, your pretty,, really.” y/n laughed at they looked up at the lazily passing clouds with a gentle smile plastered on their relaxed face. 

Karl laughed away the small compliment after he looked back up into Kit’s e/c eyes as the group broke into talking about the coming showdown between the two sides.

“Kit, I think you should fight, Mason. You have the best shot out of us aside from me, of course.” Sherif Thompson spoke. 

“That’s okay with me! Anything to stop those guys from ruining my pastries really.” Kit said as their interest was engulfed by the warmth from the fire once again. Karl felt fear dig its way into his chest as he looked at Kit’s side profile remembering the last time he had seen them like this. 

“Karl go to your library, please. The grid can’t reach it” y/n called to Karl over the never-ending sounds of explosions and falling rubble. “I’ll be okay, I got my bow and my charisma.” y/n chuckled sadly.

“Come down with me! We can be safe together. This isn’t worth it, y/n!” Karl begged as he yelled over to their figure standing tall knowing they were on their last life, knowing that they were not going to go with Karl, knowing this could end in tragedy. Y/n turned  with fresh tears trailing down their cheeks. 

“This is my home, Karl.”

“I know.” Karl resigned to the fact that you weren’t gonna come with him. Weren’t gonna cower as L’manburg breathed its final breath full of smoke. “I love you.” He yelled as they gave a brave smile jumping down to join the fray. He had imprinted the side profile of their face as they stood solemn, lit by the cloudy sky and the flashes of explosions.

Suddenly it was high noon. Tension building in Karl’s chest as he called out the paces studying Kit walk away from Mason. The track record had been 2-0 he could only hope it would remain so positive.

1

Y/n had died from an arrow.

2

An arrow through the chest.

3

It had been thought to have been shot from Dream’s grid.

4

No one knew who did it. There was no way to know.

5

They bled out at the bottom of the crater,

6

alone,

7

As Karl huddled in the library,

8

Eyes shut tight.

9

Karl knew that in some twisted way, he might as well of fired that arrow himself. 

10

FIRE!

They both fell to the ground, Mason dying upon impact due to the arrow directly piercing his heart. Kit wasn’t as lucky, the arrow had hit it’s target, but not quite a bullseye, the tip was lodged into their upper thigh. 

“y/n!” Karl called out in a panic, the strange name not lost to the group around him. He rushed to Kit’s side as tears freely flowed down his face. “Does anyone have a potion?” Kit stared at him in confusion.

“Hey, I’ll be fine, not an artery or anything, just hurts.” they gave Karl a soft smile trying to reassure him of the small injury not being lethal.

“Yea, yea, sorry, I just.”

“y/n’s dead, Karl.” Quackity said as he walked into the secret room of the library that was hidden behind the bookshelf full of y/n’s favorite classics. Karl was frozen in fear as he studied Quackity’s face for any sign of this being some sick sadistic joke. He only found sorrow and loss.

“No, no, y/n, will be here any second! The fight is over, and they are okay, right? Right?” Karl begged Quackity as he felt his hands begin to shake, his breaths becoming ragged. Quackity sat down beside him letting Karl curl into his side. Karl hand’s gripped to his shirt as he sobbed. Quackity knew he couldn’t stop Karl’s pain, but he could comfort him through it.

“I guess, you just reminded me of an old friend.”

[naughtyneganjdm]

hello! firstly, a few things to say, 1: seeing your posts and general thoughts on the negan haters (that just sounds some immature in some way just because of how they act) made me think just how crude some anti-fans can be in general (not just twd). I mean, look at how some fans acted when Pedro Pascal was announced as joel! dont get me wrong, I'll excited for the role and will still watch BUT I think there could've been better options for sure (not just JDM but he was an option for me too) however, the way some fans have treated pascal or they said online about it is so horrible and crude! like fine, u can dislike something or someone but do you really have to cuss out and say bad and unnecessary shit out loud for people who dont want to hear anything about the horrible things u say?? it's just immature and horrible really.

and 2, I know in the past you've asked some of us or have even thought about movie away from TWD's plot for sake one of your series' ( I think it was the one with OC Joel but not 100% or maybe a different series or fic/multiple ones) anddd...I agree! I think what the writers of that show did with the series as IMMENSELY gone downhill and many many fans can tell, especially after negan was introduced. at first I really loved the direction they were taking negan, he always fascinated me in some within the comics too but, now seeing how things have slightly worsened kinda sucks because I truly LOVE TWD but it's gone downhill in recent years. so yeah, seeing your fics or series' moving away from the plot of TWD would be interesting and fun cause you wouldn't have to rely on certain events and just take the writing elsewhere with your own doing and choosing.

(sry for the lengthy message lol)

Let's see if I can hit everything up here. I think there are some seriously horrible, negative people in every fandom. Unfortunately you get that on the internet. I don't support anyone attacking any of the actors/actress/etc. or attacking real life people. My problem with the people who hate Negan is that I have seen someone who I consider one of the nicest people be told they should be raped and killed for merely just liking Negan. I've seen people use fiction as an excuse to be racist, homophobic, transphobic, to misgender people on purpose, etc. I'm assuming this is the same anonymous as before??

Pedro Pascal being cast as Joel I think was widely accepted by a lot of people because he is so damn popular. I think some people were upset because he looks nothing like Joel and even me at first I was very unaccepting of him in the role. Jeff, Nikolai, Jackman, Brolin, etc were all very popular choices. I think at first people got really pissed because you had arrogant Pedro Pascal fans (who hadn't even played the game) throwing things in the faces of people who were disappointed that even though Jeff looks EXACTLY like Joel (let's be honest, he does) and that Jeff had the same personality that anyone who though Jeff, Brolin or Jackman should be the role then they were wrong and they didn't know what they were talking about blah blah blah. You know. The shit starters. BUT, I think I've made it clear I like Pedro. He's a handsome guy. He's a decent actor. I don't think he was the best choice for Joel, but anyone being racist or a fucking asshole is...well that. An asshole. I think I've made it clear that Joel in The Guest/Arcadia is made after the video game character and someone asked me once, "Do you see Pedro as the character now?" And I was very anti that idea since in my mind Joel is this very southern, green eyed guy that has a full beard that is muscular, but at this point...if people want to picture Pedro. LET THEM. It's not my choice who people choose to see in the role and PEDRO IS JOEL on the show. They aren't casting The Last of Us according to who looks like the characters at all. So anyone being an asshole, they are just being an asshole.

The story I was actually trying NOT to follow The Walking Dead storyline with was The Mistress. Not the one with Joel. I think I have decided I will not follow The Walking Dead with that story. It may upset people, but I don't like where they are going and I'm fairly certain they are killing Negan. I've followed it long enough and I've put that family through enough torture. I don't know how the final season will go, who knows at this point? But, I'm going to attempt to write as much as I can because if they kill Negan, I'm pretty certain I'm going to stop writing in general because I'll be so disappointed. So it's better for me to get it in now as much as I can.

Sorry for the lengthy response.

[mzannthropy]

Rebecca (2020)

I really couldn’t be bothered typing it all out, luckily I was tweeting about it excessively while watching so I’ll just use those tweets to write my review. 

Yes, it was a very nice looking movie, but that’s just not enough. Re the mustard suit... 

We’ve already heard enough about the mustard suit.

They start with the famous first line (duh, of course) and I also like that they kept in the line about bottling a memory like a scent. BUT---

The heroine and Maxim are NOT supposed to be physically intimate before their marriage. Hell, they’re not even physically intimate after they marry!

I don’t know what I make of her driving the car, I think it’s out of character. And in the book, he let her have the book of poetry. 

Nice car and how gorgeous is Monaco? 

Ann Dowd killed it as Mrs Van Hopper. Must be a fun character to play for an experienced actress like her!

So, the proposal, I’m probably an unpopular opinion about this, but I have always liked it, from the first time I read Rebecca--and I’m a Maxim hater. I love how casually he drops it, while eating breakfast (breakfast is one of my favourite things, ok?). I have always loathed big, dramatic proposals, the going-down-on-one-knee-with-ring things, I find them cringey and they make me feel like I want to run away. Ok maybe he didn’t have to call her a little fool, but I like it. Maxim grabbing her shoulders while saying that line was just...meh. (Also, since they had already kissed and more, why would she think he wants her to come to Manderley to be his secretary??) 

Manderley. There should have been a long, winding drive to the house but ok. Kristin Scott Thomas, a highlight of the movie. 

This is where it starts to go really wrong. The point was that Maxim DID NOT show, or let Mrs Danvers or any other servant show, the house to his new wife. She gets lost in it later! The family history is irrelevant. 

This is what I tweeted:  “Why is he sleepwalking? Jesus. Do you even know the story you're adapting?”

I liked Beatrice, Giles and Granny. Giles makes a good comic relief. I also liked Frank Crawley, now I realise I never mentioned him in my tweets but he’s like my favourite character and a million times better man than Maxim. Not sure this movie really captured the nice friendship he has with Mrs de Winter 2. 

Good to see Dolorous Edd again, not seen him since Game of Thrones! I liked the actor that played Robert too, even though he hardly had any lines, I thought he was a good fit.

So, Sam Riley as Jack Favell. Before watching, I hoped he, too, would be one of the highlights, as this is a good role for an actor to sink his teeth into, such a deliciously slimy character! I loved his performance--but that horse riding scene... not right. And then Maxim getting jealous over him?? Did these people read the book?

In the book the dress for the fancy dress ball was white, here they changed it to red but it doesn’t matter bc red is associated with Rebecca anyway. Speaking of which, they could have at least put those red rhododendrons in, they’ve got nice scenery and sets, why not flowers too?

These are my following tweets and I honestly don’t remember what they refer to, but at this stage it doesn’t matter:

This is now a different story.

I'm pretty sure there shouldn't be that many storms. (Ok, this one clearly refers to storms and yes, remember how in the book it was very hot and stuffy and the air was heavy and they *wanted* a storm, but it didn’t come until the evening after the inquest.)

Eh not sure that Armie is pulling this off... Sorry.

That's.... Not how it happened...

Gosh this is so flat.

THIS IS ALL WRONG!

This is not how it happened. This is not how it's supposed to go.

"Why shouldn't a woman amuse herself." Finally a good line.

It was good to see Maxim in a jail cell, where he belongs. He got out the next day, but I’ll take what I can. 

They confirm the Rebecca/Danvers relationship but then have Danny kill herself. Ok. And the ending...

Ok, the ending. It was really a beautiful scene. Lily in front of a mirror, smoking, then Armie and her get intimate. Absolutely gorgeous. BUT--that’s not the de Winters. That’s a scene from a different movie. It made them look like a couple that travels the world doing crimes, like Bonnie and Clyde or someone, but that’s not what de Winters are. They live a boring existence somewhere in southern Europe (I think) in hotels and read papers. Like, you might call them criminals, after all Maxim is a murderer and he made her an accessory, but not in Bonnie and Clyde way. Wrong.

What I especially hated was that they brought up all that stuff about Rebecca in court. The book has so much tension, this is where it turns into proper thriller. The point was that it never gets out. (If it was true at all, we only have Maxim’s word for it.) Well, the point is that this movie completely misses the point, so what can I say.

So much melodrama. And it had it potential.

[descannotwrite]

things on dating apps i consider red flags:

(disclaimer: all of these pertain to cis men in my experience, i'm using inclusive pronouns bc i'm sure some of them are gender neutral. i have little-no idea what a red flag looks like in a womxn or nonbinary people bc while i'm attracted to both i haven't interacted with either much)

"I'm too ____ for most people and end up alone most of the time" this is hiding under the "it's just who i am i'm sorry" excuse- they just refuse to work on themself

"Swipe left if you're _____" more worried about what they want than how they're presenting themself- bio is not the place for this.

Any mention of "thick girls" or "latinas only" or anything like that. (Some versions if this are ok. Follow your gut) same as above and often racist/fatphobic/etc

No profile bio

Hardly any pic showing the person's face- this type of insecurity suggests not being ready for a relationship.

All/most pics of them involve alcohol/weed/cigarettes/etc. Think about how they choose to represent themself.

"I'm not here for a long time, I'm here for a good time" No Randy you're irresponsible

"Ig I'm the old fashioned type" You're not old fashioned you're either racist or sexist or both and/or pride yourself on outdated chivalry and expect for it to make up for your lacking in another area.

"6'1 since that matters" general saltiness toward standards men are being held to- understandable but this is often either a humblebrag and their height is their only personality trait, they're lying, or they're salty @ women for this particular standard, often a sign they don't trust women

"Let's see where things go" sounds like they want your commitment with the freedom to ghost you like things were casual

Any reference to "started from the ground now i'm here" or "the haters"- thinks they work harder than they do, thinks people are expendable, etc

"Does anyone even read bios?" They should, and this tells me you don't.

Mentions recent weight loss- might be their only personality trait.

"Don't hmu if you can't take a joke" huge asshole, will cross lines for a "joke" and gaslight you when you ask them not to

"Dark humor" "sarcasm" esp in men. this too often is an excuse for offensive humor and gaslighting. if he's defining his wntire personality by this- big red flag. run.

guns in pics- this one's personal but hear me out. people who make a hobby out of hunting and collect guns. it's killing things. a hobby. it's not "hunting to survive" the US is NOT the place for that. it's like 400% cheaper to just... buy meat at the store. this is some peoples' main source of getting away/taking a vacation. why is this part of our culture. this is disturbing and a huge proponent of southern toxic masculinity.

for obviously strajght cis men: pics with other dressed up women. it may be my own insecurity talking but i always see this as "you must be this pretty to ride this ride" or something like that.

"i need a girl that can eat" ew.

"i'll probably break your heart" a little too okay with treating people badly, or just has noticed that pattern and refuses to work on it. say it with me: it's not a challenge. it's a warning.

to be cont'd

[adriennemareebrown]

part one: what a time to be alive.

right now we are in a fast river together – every day there are changes that seemed unimaginable until they occurred.

if you are a white person (or a man) this is a time of intentionally relinquishing power, or having it pulled out from under you. i know it seems fast and everywhere, but it’s actually not a rapids, not a waterfall, not a tsunami. most people who aren’t white have in our lineages or lived experiences the whiplash of much more drastic changes, placed upon us by your ancestors. being snatched from home and shipped into slavery, weighed and measured, worked to death, lynched daily by authorities, reminded that our lives are expendable at any moment (and yes this is true even right now, hence #blacklivesmatter and #defundthepolice).

or being displaced from the land we were given instructions to love and care for, then raped, killed or reprogrammed.

or being burnt up by new weapons your ancestors created to speed colonization or domination. being cast as the savages or terrorists in their worldview in a way that stuck to us even outside the stage of their minds; stuck in your minds such that it’s nearly impossible for you to even see it without cultural ice buckets poured on the delusion.

your ancestors did not fight fair, and they didn’t teach you to be in right relationship with anyone. they didn’t give our ancestors time to wonder, ask for help, course correct, negotiate. this is why some say you should be grateful we seek justice, equality, and our humanity, versus revenge. because right now, after years of physical, intellectual and cultural warfare on peoples who were different from white, you have an opportunity to leap forward, dive into this river of change, rather than be deluged and drowned in it.

the time for denial is over. you were not raised in a secret mountaintop retreat disconnected from the world, you haven’t existed with no contact for over 400 years…so we know you see and know what is going on. and you’re scared, saddened, defensive, guilty, and unsure of who to be if you aren’t the default superior. so you make choices towards or away from or against your own highest self.

when you say ‘but don’t all lives matter?’ we hear ‘i refuse to acknowledge the harm i have caused you by benefiting from false constructs of supremacy. i cannot prioritize your pain over my privilege.’

when you say ‘ok ok so teach me’, we hear, ‘my time and needs continue to be more important than yours. i refuse to google and read, i demand your labor.’

when you say ‘but what do i do?’ it sounds like procrastination, because we have told you a million things. here.

here are ways i recommend for diving into this river:

learn to say, and mean, ‘i am sorry for the impact of my white supremacy.’ don’t post it on the internet, say it from your heart and gut directly to people you’ve impacted, especially in situations when you were/are in positions of leadership or authority. and then – and this is important – shift your behavior so you never need to give that apology again. riffing off fellow nerd albert einstein, practicing white supremacy and expecting a different outcome than race war is one definition of collective insanity. i don’t want the apology without the shifts in behavior, policy and access to power, without the end of the monsoon of constant harm.

commit to doing your own work without seeking accolades. yes, some people of color will be welcoming, will even celebrate what you do – i am sometimes moved to tears when i hear how acts-of-white-people-being-kind-to-black-people touch my black southern father, who just never thought he would see that. and/but many people of color won’t clap because the point of this moment is decentering whiteness in the story of humanity. that means not centering white course correction with the attention we give a baby’s first steps. we won’t patronize you for rejoining a collective path…and that should be good news.

don’t revert to supremacy under pressure. it breaks trust. if you are told you are practicing white supremacy, consider that we see and feel things you do not because they’re weaponized against us, weighted against us, scarring us, limiting us. we aren’t generalizing or reducing you, we are protecting our vulnerable lives.

redistribute resources. not as charity, which is just another way to assuage the conscience of privilege. redistribute money, leadership positions, decision-making power, land, time in meetings, visionary space, relationships with philanthropy, speaking opportunities, press attention, health care benefits – if you can measure it, you can redistribute the resource.

i am taking the time to write to you because i am a mixed race black woman. i am connected to the same lineages of harm as you, even as i am harmed by them. i am in intimate familial relationship with white people, and i want those relationships to be honest and accountable. i benefit from how the artifacts of whiteness in my skin, cadence, and cultural shaping make me more visible and comprehensible to you, more human to you.

it’s a devastating weight to carry, to work to be fully myself, humble and brilliant and messy and great, against a delusion of white supremacy so pervasive and invasive that it can grow within each of us without invitation. but just because something alive violates us does not mean we asked for it, does not mean we partner with it, believe it, or even let it live.

i in my wholeness am working to hold the contradictions of white supremacy responsibly, to weed my own garden even as i demand and build my and our black power. we all have our work, and none of us can do anyone else’s.

..

part two: a variation on paying attention to white people

in the spirit of ‘what you pay attention to grows’, i want to bring more attention to the white people who are in my life, none by accident, none tolerated, each beloved and cultivated. not everyone has an experience of white people who love, learn with, and follow them. i want to practice, in this moment, attending to them as much as or more than we attend to the swarm of karens and beckys and donalds and other haters.

i do not believe whiteness will just disappear in shame, or that white people committed to race and other offenses to science and god will self-segregate in a way that leaves the rest of us and the planet safe. so i must believe that something else can emerge, is emerging, even if it is still small and rare. and my belief is met by the presence, felt much more than spoken, of white people who are blessings, peers, beloveds, comrades, self-responsible humans.

i am blessed by my mother. she gave up everything she’d been raised in, family and resources, when she realized she was in love with my father. she began unlearning racism without training, decolonization curricula, language monitors. she began her unlearning in relationship, both as wife and as mother. she was the one who came storming into classrooms challenging our racist teachers. she has taken our sides and has our backs and asserts our brilliance at every turn. she doesn’t claim to get it right, she keeps leaning in and learning with love. she makes me consider that something can shift deep within when you birth a black child, or three. i am not interested in denying that, ridiculing that, making it smaller than what it is.

i am blessed by those in my southern white family who reach out to let me know they love me and listen hungrily to suggestions for what they can do to be in solidarity, to raise their kids to see beyond the racism they’re all raised to swim in. they do help to offset the pain of knowing there are white people related to me by blood who watched me be a black child and then chose to vote for the klan’s favorite president, frump.

i am blessed by the anti-racist white people in my inner friend circle. instead of perfection, these friends are committed to practice, to asking questions and really listening to the answers, to doing their own work and not putting it on me, to releasing rigid control and seeing that that there are many ways to be productive and efficient, to growing ease in taking leadership from black people, from people of color. and then diving in deep with other white people. and decentering themselves in their fields. and fucking up, and then letting it grow them rather than make them performative or bitter. they do most of their race work elsewhere, and yet it is palpable to me without feeling like guilt, charity, pity or other power-over emotions.

i have had a white partner in the past, and though i revel and thrive in black love now, when i look at movement i actually see a huge number of leaders with white partners, white family, white community. sometimes claimed, sometimes quietly kept off screen. i think we need to bring more attention to why those people get to be in our lives, why any white person gets the privilege of being in intimate space with those who have experienced enough ancestral harm from white people to stay away forever. attend not in a carrot/stick way, not denying your humanity, not cheerleading what you are already just supposed to do, but simply to acknowledge that it is work.

it isn’t a shift at the level of slogan, political correctness or press release, though those cultural quakes do soften the soil for new organic infrastructures of antiracist life to take root. it is deeply personal work to relinquish white supremacy, and it helps me if i think of the white people in my life not as exceptional, but just a few steps ahead in their work.

think of those confederate statues coming down. all my roots are southern…those statues seemed like they’d always been there and always would be. and then slowly the realization that they were celebrating the worst of humanity, the plantation hitlers, that that’s what white supremacy is really about. now it feels inevitable that we are pulling down the symbols, while inside everyone’s minds we are pulling down the ideas of racial supremacy.

but then there’s the gap, the statue’s empty base, the place where that idea once seemed right but now there’s just the wound, the world shaped around the absence of a clear way of being. i just purchased the bust of a black man, head full of amethyst, from damon davis; and last year i visited the lynching museum, full of statues to honor the murdered. both of these works are perfect and i wish they were everywhere, so i am tempted to make a case for replacing the statues with black heroes and martyrs. but i can also see the case for no replacement statues, in our town squares or our minds. we live in a beautiful interconnected world that needs our attention. maybe if we drop the performance of celebrating difference, we can make it possible to actually survive difference.

it must be possible. we must make it possible, or else we will always be in a position of demand, or counter policing, or rage. i want us to use this current justified rage to shape demands that take the labor and danger off of us. so that our grandchildren don’t have to live such taut, hurt and angry lives.

at the same time i want us to contend for power, and notice who truly invites that power. that is the common trait of every white person, every person, i allow into my life in a meaningful way: there is a mutual invitation. both of us in our power and truest selves are invited into every space.

so for the white people walking this path with me, thank y’all for keeping me faithful when a mass perspective on whiteness still feels pretty hopeless. thank you for being willing to be visible, or not. thank you for not waiting for praise as you unlearn the supremacy you were programmed to practice, and for not reacting personally to the righteous rage and shifting boundaries required to move through this collective transition. thank you for offering support instead of demanding more labor.

mary hooks has articulated a mandate for black people in this time – to avenge the suffering of our ancestors, earn the respect of future generations, and be willing to be transformed in the service of the work. the white people in my life must align with that mandate – put your lifetime in service of undoing the work of your ancestors, earning the respect of future generations, and being willing to be transformed in the service of the work.