DARKJEZ [Stay Fly & Remain Pimpin']: lightspeedsound: lebanesepoppyseed: Why the video was fucking, rong...

lightspeedsound:

lebanesepoppyseed:

• Why the video was fucking, rong doe
• “You just don’t understand it’s art” argument
• “You just don’t understand it’s art” argument by neverthehurricane
• The “It wasn’t her fault” argument
• The petition
• Super-ekletic1’s video about “No Light No Light”
• Keir Bristol’s blog post about “No Light No Light”
• My personal history with the imagery and themes in the “No Light No Light” video
• In which I shout down another fool-ass who probably said a lot of the same shit you’re saying right now
• Derailing for Dummies is always useful when dealing with privilege-denying assholes

(BTW your white powers are of no use here)

As a POC (Chinese) who has participated in a performance art production that included Yellow Face, I’d like to make some points.

1) The whole “Art for Art’s sake! Self Expression!” argument doesn’t work to negate the whole “this shit is racist” claim unless the artist’s point is to point out the WRONGNESS of said general racism, not to glorify it and turn it into some pretty shit involving exoticism and fucked up stereotypes.

2) Going off of that, if you’re going to say ‘she’s just being herself! It’s what she wanted to do! She’s so un-mainstream that it’s ok because she’s rebelling against the media!” No. Fuck No. You can’t use that argument because it STILL DOESN’T EXPLAIN AWAY THE FACT THAT THIS SHIT WAS BLATANT RACISM. The video portrays a white woman being tortured by some weird perception of voodoo by a person in blackface and then the white woman gets saved by a choir of white altar boys. WTF. Why hello there tropes of Christianity being the only good religion, gross generalizations of the whole voodoo culture, and also long-standing tradition of objectification of Black people. How the FUCK is saying “that’s just what she was trying to express” a way to say “that’s not racism”? Seriously? She’s expressing racism. Let’s move on.

3) Just because she’s a WOMAN doesn’t make it ok. Hell, it wouldn’t be ok even if she was a Black woman. It would make it a little less blatant with the racist imagery, since it would forgo the whole “perceptional history of black men molesting white woman with their African magic dick” thing, but it would still be really fuckin’ prejudicial. Being one minority does not give you the right to say whatever the fuck you want about other minority groups. For example, if you are a Black man, that doesn’t give you license to say shit about women, does it? No. Good. Let’s move on.

4) If a POC explains why something is racist, and makes no factual errors in describing it (ex: if the video didn’t actually feature a person in blackface), then that means it’s racist. It doesn’t matter if “your Black friend said it was cool” or if you, a WHITE PERSON, thinks, “No way, I don’t see what’s wrong with it.” Fuck that. It’s racist. And actually, a POC (particularly a Black person) would probably be able to perceive way more racist shit in this than you would. I mean, I watch Disney’s Mulan and I can’t stop cringing because of the westernized exoticism and gross cultural inaccuracies. White people probably (in general, unless they’ve spent some extensive time researching Chinese history/culture) would probably not be able to see as much wrong with that, for the same reason that white people think that General Tso’s Chicken is actually Chinese food. So leave your whole, “I don’t see what’s racist it’s just voodoo am I right?” argument at the door. Clearly, you don’t know jackshit about the culture if people who are PART OF THE TARGETED MINORITY ARE SAYING “THIS SHIT IS INACCURATE AND UNCOOL AND OBJECTIFYING AND HORRIFYING.”

5.) That being said, I love this girl’s whole, “Listen to what we are saying” argument. Because people on the internet don’t listen and tend to bring up these fucked up logical fallacies ALL THE TIME.