AIBU to find these fb posts a bit racist?

[choochootrain1]

I have so many friends who seem to think its fine to share "black is beautiful" type posts (for the record I don't disagree and my family is mixed) however as a Caucasian woman can you imagine it going down ok if I posted a pic of a blonde haired blue eyed child with "white and proud of it"?

I'm not actually going to do anything about it, or confront anyone - it just upsets me a bit that id be shot down as a racist white supremacist for the same type of posts

Op, there is a really interesting piece written by someone which may help you understand why one is okay (and not inherently racist), whilst the other is not.

Unfortunately I can't remember what it was called exactly- but it was about something known as white privilege, which essentially describes the benefits that people of the majority ethnicity / culture / etc experience simply because they are of the minority culture- and therefore, why people of minority cultures have to work so much harder to be "equal" and to claim even a sliver of power.

It's something like "the 50 benefits of white privilege"... Will google.

GirlWithTheLionHeart I agree with you about the African Caribbean nursery (and think you may live near me!) The only child I personally know to have attended there is white. I don't like the name of the nursery and wrote it off for DD simply because of it.

grumpasaur that sounds exactly what i was trying to describe upthread. i'd be interested to see that if you track it down

Alright, it's called Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, by Peggy McIntire.

the intro is interesting, but what really struck me was the list of 50 things at the end.

Here is the link, but I am not clever enough to make it a clicky link!

amptoons.com/blog/files/mcintosh.html

sweetnessandlite I bet you couldn't even name one of those Nigerian school girls. You have proved exactly my point. No one can find a headline of a missing or even dead black girl like JonBenét Ramsey or Caylee Anthony.

Once again:

"Show me one example where is a missing black girl made media headlines and national outcry, and you know her name. I'm only asking for one."

Still waiting. :)

Because if racism can swing both ways, then both races must have the same advantage. So lets see it.

Otherwise admit this "I was victim of reverse racism" is bullshit.

Only one...

Ok I have just RTFT as I posted while my initial opinion was fresh in mind before I got sidetracked.

Talking about the missing Nigerian girls in response to a comment about lack of media coverage for missing black children is completely irrelevant. The missing girls were kidnapped by a group of terrorists (Muslim ones, which is also good for the UK media). This is international news. Missing black children here in Britain isn't.

Now I can't name any missing black children because, to be honest, they don't stick in my mind as I don't hear their names repeated on the news. I can talk about dead black children though.

Have any of you heard of Ben Kinsella? Jimmy Mizen? Two teenage boys who were murdered in 2008, a year when knife crime was rising significantly, particularly in London. I was 16 at the time and a friend of mine was stabbed to death just down the road from where Ben Kinsella was. I can't remember if it was a few weeks before or after, but I know it was around the same time. His story was given a whole two paragraphs in the local newspaper. Googling his name would bring up very little.

Or there's the nurse who was stabbed to death in broad daylight just a few months ago. Not a child but a similar story, all the same. This one did make the national news and the Daily Mail even wrote a story about it, but still there was very little coverage. I would bet my bottom dollar that if a white nurse was stabbed to death on a busy street at 1pm the media would be giving it plenty of coverage.

Perhaps some of you should really, really think about what white privilege is and what it actually means in society.

do you not know why Stephen Lawrence is remembered?

I actually complained to ITV about their coverage of Damilola Taylor's murder. It was the third story on the news. I can't remember what the first 2 stories were, it was 14 years ago, but they must have struck me as being less newsworthy that a child being stabbed to death in broad daylight. It was at the end of a summer dominated by Sarah Payne and the contrast was striking.

CourtneyKilledKurt

Yes, but we're talking about UK where there's a predominantly white population. Not Africa. Even if we were, OP doesn't live in Africa she lives in a predominantly white country. So, saying "Well Africa!" to prove black people are racist is a weak argument.

In Japan, where the Japanese are the dominant ethnicity, they are racist against Koreans and have been known to discriminate against them.

All races have bigots and ignorant assholes. Even here in America blacks and latinos are known to fight and not get along (though gang violence has gotten better). They are bigoted against each other, but they are not racist. A black person has no power over latinos and vise versa. White people targeting a minority has a much bigger implication.

Anyway, I can lead a horse to water. I'm done trying to make idiots here drink.

Do you think of yourself as "white"? I don't, except occasionally to recognise that being born white,middle-class and sounding a bit posh has probably contributed to smoothing my passage through life.

Squeaky and Petula if the person who assaulted the poster who asked for directions had been prosecuted it would have been treated as racially aggravated.

The law does not recognise that white people are inherently superior to the effect that slapping a white woman and calling her a white bitch is just bullying. The person who did this committed an offence which was racially aggravated - definition being (a) at the time of committing the offence, or immediately before or after doing so, the offender demonstrates towards the victim of the offence hostility based on the victim’s membership (or presumed membership) of a racial group; or

(b) the offence is motivated (wholly or partly) by hostility towards members of a racial group based on their membership of that group.

I'm aware of my position of privilege but if that had happened to me I'm still entitled to expect my attacker is dealt with as severely as a white man attacking a black woman would be.

Squeaky well said. In general throughout this thread.

YABU. I live in a country where the woman are considered to be amongst the most beautiful women in the world. Even so, they are so desperate to conform to Western ideals that even deodorants and feminine hygiene washes have whitening products in them. No joke.

Many people on this thread really do not understand racism or the long term and extensive impact that it can have on individuals, communities and entire populations. Messages like "black is beautiful" are not showing off or forcing their beauty down your throats, they are messages of pride of heritage and mutual support. In the way that "girls can be whatever they want to be" are positive messages of support and reinforcement that girls have not always experienced.

"I must have missed it if the media tells everyone that ''my" look is the right one as these days it's all hair dye and fake tan"

UK Vogue cover, September 2013 - light brown/dark blonde-haired, blue-eyed, Caucasian model (Daria Werbowy)
UK Vogue cover, October 2013 - brown-haired, green-eyed model (around two-thirds Caucasian / one-third Chinese) (Alexa Chung)
UK Vogue cover, November 2013 - blonde, blue-eyed, Caucasian model (Claire Danes)
UK Vogue cover, December 2013 - blonde, hazel-eyed, Caucasian model (Kate Moss)
UK Vogue cover, January 2014 - blonde, blue-eyed, Caucasian model (Cara Delevigne)
UK Vogue cover, February 2014 - blonde, green(?)-eyed, Caucasian model (Georgia May Jagger)
UK Vogue cover, March 2014 - light brown/dark blonde-haired, blue-eyed, Caucasian model (Daria Werbowy again)
UK Vogue cover, April 2014 - brown-haired, brown-eyed, Caucasian model (Nigella Lawson, who incidentally is Photoshopped to heck))
UK Vogue cover, May 2014 - blonde, hazel-eyed, Caucasian model (Kate Moss again)
UK Vogue cover, June 2014 - blonde, blue-eyed, Caucasian model (Kate Upton)
UK Vogue cover, July 2014 - brown-haired, green-eyed, Caucasian model (Christy Turlington)
UK Vogue cover, August 2014 - brown-haired, brown-eyed, Caucasian model (Victoria Beckham)

In fact, if you look back over the covers from the last ten years of UK Vogue there is precisely one issue with a black featured cover model (Beyonce in May 2013) plus one black model (Jourdan Dunn) who features in a group shot on the November 2008 cover.

Pastperfect, the Body Shop really sells skin lighteners? The Body Shop????? My God! Please tell me Lush doesn't do it too, or I'll have nowhere left to shop.

Whoops, the above was a reply to a post on the first page of the thread. I didn't realise there were 4 more pages when I posted. Off to read through those pages. Regarding the last few posts on page 5, well said, Sparks1007 and TortoiseUpaTreeAgain.

Phaedra you have the privilege of not having to think of your race because it's not an issue

And I'm not sure why you've directed your other comment at me. I said up thread (yes I am quoting myself ) " i think someone can be racist or sexist towards another person in the privileged group, but it's different because it's not institutionalised, it's not coming from a position of power, and it's far more likely to be a one-off case of discrimination rather than an endless pattern"

*Petula I addressed my comment to you because you are trying to diminish racism if racist attacks are made on the group you consider is in power.

"It's different because it's not institutionalised" -so what? A racist hate attack is a racist hate attack.

Head in hands at the examples of missing black girls... Stephen Lawrence and Damilola Taylor.

Some depressing, racist and unbelievably obtuse posts here.

actually i think the reverse - i think it is diminishing the racist attacks on the oppressed group to say that a racist attack on the privileged group is the same

Courtney you're right, Stephen Lawrence is spoken about a lot. Why?

Damilola Taylor was covered by the media (but as thecageisfull has already said, it wasn't a "top story" straight away.) A 10-year-old boy being murdered in broad daylight, I would hope that would be covered, even as the bare minimum.

You're missing the point. Naming two big cases that happened a decade and two ago does not prove anything. There are horrible things that happen to children of all races all of the time, but unless you can show some kind of western beauty, the media is very unlikely to try and generate support from the general public.

and i'm not saying it's ok, or right for white people to experience attacks from BME groups based on their ethnicity. but it is set within a totally different context

Just to give an example of how prevalent white standards of beauty are, and how damn young these standards are internalised by black girls and women, just before Christmas last I (white) was at the hairdresser with DD (mixed race). As the hairdresser was putting her hair in twists, DD pointed at a black adult woman a few chairs down who was having her hair chemically straightened, and asked, "Mummy, why can't I have pretty hair like that lady?" When I said she was much, much too young to have her hair straightened and anyway her hair was just as pretty, DD threw a strop.

She insisted it was unfair that I had "pretty" hair (i.e. naturally straight) when she didn't, and I should let her get her hair straightened. At this time, DD was 3 months away from her fifth birthday. That's right, she was FOUR! I was shocked and appalled (and considered myself a rotten parent), but DD's hairdresser had heard it all before, many times. I should point out that DD isn't even an especially girly girl, and is not usually hung up on standards of beauty.

Has anybody read Lupita Nyong'o's speech at the Essence Awards earlier this year about beauty standards and growing up with dark skin?

www.essence.com/2014/02/27/lupita-nyongo-delivers-moving-black-women-hollywood-acceptance-speech/

I haven't read every single page in this topic yet, so perhaps someone else linked to it already. But it's well worth reading or watching (there's an embedded video at the link as well).

Chiana the hair thing is a massive issue. I'm mixed, DP is black so DD is 75:25 black:white. When I was pregnant, most I my black friends said things like "Oooh let's hope she gets good hair". When her hair turned to be slightly curly but with a soft European feel, apparently it was confirmed that she did (and when she straightens it it'll even appear to look naturally straight!)

Why is it that even young black women see something that is not like their own as "good hair" but kinky Afro hair is "bad hair"?

Despite having "good hair" DD is forever complaining that she hates hers and wants it to be straight. Better yet, straight and blonde, like all of her favourite TV characters.

I've also noticed that Princess Tiana isn't included on a lot of Disney Princess merchandise when Rapunzel is, despite Tangled being release a year after The Princess and the Frog. She's on some, but not all.

If anyone still doesn't understand the implications of western beauty being favoured, I think this video is well worth watching (if you can be bothered)
The Doll Test