oodlenoodleroodle:

persverso:

Can we all just admit out loud that it’s actually pretty fucking hard to constantly be aware of the privileges you do have AND that therefore it is important to point out injustices and social problems to people not involved with them in a nice and civil manner even if you have talked about this subject before, and even if you have talked about this subject before with this person in particular?

 Social awareness isn’t like riding a bicycle, that you’d learn it once and then you’re supposed to know it.

 Being white, it literally didn’t occur to me that all this new awesome strong female character representation on american cinema is consistently and exclusively white before someone on Tumblr said it. Being able-bodied, I literally never take time considering whether a building I live in, work in or visit is wheelchair-accessible. No cis person I’ve met irl has known that the finnish trans law requires me to be sterilised in order to change legal sex.

 And why is that?

 Because due to the fact that people with a privilege do not have to deal with an issue, they might genuinely not be aware of it. You don’t see things that you are not taught to look for.

 So please, if you only can, continue to be patient and tell people things.

And for the love of God if someone with personal experience in a matter tells you things, please listen.

 And I get that Tumblr has gotten a lot better with this, it’s not just toxic oppression olympics anymore, but I cannot stress enough that while being ignorant of a problem that you are not personally involved in is a luxury many cannot afford, the obliviousness of it the very most likely does not stem from an inherent evil.

 You can tell a white girl that racism is bad and have her believe it, but you can’t expect her to suddenly become a natural expert on the more subtler matters of racial discrimination and then accuse her of being cruel or callous when she is not, after all.

 Learning this kind of shit takes time, and you have to learn about every single thing, be it racism, ableism, sexism, cissexism, you name it, individually. Please do not assume that someone ignorant of the extent, mechanics or nuances of an injustice they do not personally face is ignorant out of malice.

So for all the strength and faith in humanity all of y’all have in you

please

be

patient

with

people.

And the longer you’ve been learning and unlearning all the stuff, the more natural and obvious it will seem to you - but not so for people who are new to it. And in a space like Tumblr there is constantly going to be people who are new. 

People who have never heard the word “cis” before and don’t understand what it means, people who don’t get the difference between cultural appropriation and sharing of cultures and honestly don’t understand the harm in appropriation, people who don’t understand how privilege operates with things like food and water and climate change, etc etc… 

So the longer you are involved in this stuff - especially on the internet - the more it will seem to just repeat itself. You will feel like “this shit again?” a lot. You’ll feel like there is no progress being made. That it’s just going in a damn circle. 

But it’s just because the people needing to hear the 101 -level stuff are new.
It’s not that no one is learning anything and you are screaming at a brick wall.