disciplesofmalcolm:

songsforthesiren:

adaymerges:

willynillylily:

massive trigger warning for:  racism (anti-asian, anti-black, lynching, n-word), racist harassment, depression

i alluded to this post before but now i’m going to explain in full.  today’s like confession time or something, i finally told my parents about this situation (they’re really angry), and i might as well write it down here too.  

this happened February 2012, so last semester.  i still have screenshots and emails confirming all of this and i am waiting for the opportunity to submit this anonymously (if there’s a general site like OSUhaters, or any other site where i can put racists on blast, let me know).  

so it starts out with a status post with a white guy going “To the Black woman who works at X” where he proceeds to rant about how incompetent she is.  Ok, already starting off badly because it doesn’t take much for a Black person to get fired when white people holler.  

but then i scroll down and i see the comments.  

one of his white friends wrote comments saying that she’s just an n-word, threaten to hang her next time.  and they’re both laughing and joking about it.  

a desi woman and i both call them out, with her being a lot nicer than me.  white guy says, “it’s a joke”, we go back and forth for a little while, then he deletes our comments and defriends me.  i have no idea if he defriended the desi woman.  

so i go to my own status and call him out for his racist crap, calling him a racist fuck and explaining how i won’t be censored.  immediately the floodgates open, with 100+ comments spanning over 2 days.  

comments included:

• it’s just a joke
• who made you the internet police and other such memes
• lots of tone policing me re: be nicer, stop cussing, ‘honey’ and other sexist crap
• you’re a reverse racist
• other POC telling me to cut it out
• posts about “Everybody is a little bit racist”
• but i’m jewish
• people telling me how uneducational this was, despite the barrage of links to outside sources and a freaking anti-racist Fulbright Scholar MOC laying history smackdowns every other comment
• ‘we should all be grateful that we get to live in the USA’
• i’m colorblind

and then it continued on through multiple other posts, ones i wasn’t privy to because people kept unfriending me

in other posts, these happened:

• i asked my Black friend about this post and he said X
• what does an asian know about racism
• what makes her the authority on what plights the modern day Black woman
• i didn’t realize having good grades and parents that care for you was racism (model minority myth)
• she acts as if she grew up in the Bronx when she grew up in all-white-X town (completely erasing my identity as an 1st gen immigrant)

meanwhile i had a bunch of private messages, either telling me how strong and inspiring i am, or demanding me to trust their colorblindness or even going so far as demanding me to meet them in person so that “i can prove how not racist i actually am, racism is such a huge accusation”

and then came the harassment.  i didn’t realize this because again, i was defriended from lots of people, but they had taken my facebook profile pictures and made memes out of them making fun of me.   they posted them to each others’ walls, people liked them, commented them etc.  

and get this: i’m sure they had a lot more private emails/chats going on, because one of the people said “she’s still at it.  might as well post the memes.”

I reported the public ones to facebook, and so did one of my friends, but facebook said these were not harassment.  they wouldn’t even take down these memes as copyright violations.   so these memes are probably still up on their facebook timelines.  

these are people i’ve known for 5+ years.  these were self professed liberal white “friends” who i studied with, laughed with, went to parties with etc.  and in a split second, when i called out how obviously wrong a white guy was, they immediately turned their backs on me to defend him.   

i couldn’t eat or sleep or stop crying for about a week straight.  the harassment situation lasted for about a week, week and a half.  and i still had to see them on campus, in my classroom and in the dining room.   

i 100% hold this situation as a huge factor in worsening my depression, worsening my physical health (if you believe in mind-body dualism) because i already had a physical disability that i needed to take care of, causing my grades to plummet etc.

i also don’t forgive any white friend who didn’t speak up.  who just liked my status, who PM’d me on how brave i was, who still remain friends with these horrible people.  i haven’t forgotten how they didn’t say a word about my harassment except to tell me to “not let it get to me” or to say “hey it’s a free country and free speech”.  

this is why i don’t trust ANY of you.  it’s not the GOP or rightwingers i’m scared of because at least they make their racism abundantly clear.  it’s you, you sneaky piece of shit who had me convinced i was a friend, a person worth something, only to have you rip me apart at the seams.  

and if you’re a POC reading this, you know what i’m talking about.  you’ve heard these arguments before, again and again, in real life and on tumblr or any other social networking sites.  you’ve been gaslit too, you’ve been destroyed by white “friends.”

and this is also why i have no problem calling white people sociopaths.  why i have no problem expressing my fury at racism.   why i give no fucks about being nice or caring for your white tears.  

because there’s an establishment out there specifically for you: your powerful white friends/social network and big businesses like facebook enable your racism and punish the victims.  

finally as a disclaimer, i’m probably forgetting some details but i don’t want to look at the screenshots, it’s too stressful for me to deal with right now.  

(I posted this earlier but then I realized I was not sure if Lily wanted it shared - now that I know she’s okay with it I’m reblogging again.)  I’m so sorry that happened to you, Lily :(  You’re an awesome person and you deserve none of that, and I wish I could yell at the people who harassed you like that.  *hugs if wanted*

Needs to be read, needs to be heard. By white liberals, like myself. 

I have also been made fun of, disregarded, and insulted by people on that evil wesbsite for speaking out against racism. It’s one thing to speak out against racism on Tumblr, and a whole different thing doing it inside and outside the internet with friends and enemies. Lately I had to defend a Black friend of mine because his friend decided it would be funny to post a welfare joke on his wall. Now my friend knows that it is not “just a joke.” It’s tough.

Holy fuck this just makes me so angry.

This is why I hardly ever post anything race related on my facebook for fear of potential backlash, especially from white facebook friends. It’s already happened a few times, and I spend a lot of time thinking about whether this link or this quote is safe enough to post on my facebook.

But seriously. Fuck all those harassers. That is just utter bullshit for how they treated you directly and indirectly for getting called out.