Where were you when queer women of color were going through this shit?

Where were you when queer women of color vloggers (and, I hate to be too personal here, but yes, I am one of them) were surrounded by not only death threats, but rape threats, silencing, and victim blaming?

A white woman made a video entitled “Islam is Sexist.” I am sorry, but there is absolutely no way you can possibly defend that as not racist and not oppressive and not ignorant.

And there is no way you can say, “Well, even if she was rude and offensive and wrong and oppressive, you have to be nice her.”

Mr. Green and Mr. Gaiman: You seem like educated folks. You should know your history. Part of the oppression of people of color is white people telling them: Well, I understand you’re hurt, but you have to be civil and quiet about it, otherwise I won’t respect you.

What I don’t understand is how you can side with a person for being oppressive and racist and POINTEDLY OFFENSIVE, and then condemn the targets of that hate.

I am sorry, but if a person is racist to me or my friends, or any person within my community, I reserve the right to say “Fuck. You.”

Which is why I’m going to bring this up: Only oppressed groups are told, “your anger is not justified.”

Maybe in some contexts, Laci Green would count as an oppressed person. She is, after all, a woman. However, when the context is RACE WITHIN WESTERN SOCIETY, there is no way a white person is oppressed. None.

And, quite frankly, Mr. Green and Mr. Gaiman, I thought you were above that bullcrap. Both of you have routinely posted talks on tolerance. Hell, Mr. Gaiman, you wrote an entire book for Black people (which is constantly white washed, but oh well).

In a sterile world without intersectionality, I can understand death threats being this huge, never OK taboo. Maybe in a world where issues were isolated.

But they’re not. Intersectionality is a fact of life and what white people can’t seem to remember is that PEOPLE WHO ARE OPPRESSED WILL SNAP.

I don’t think any white person will ever understand the psychological strain of living as a Person of Color in American society. I’m sorry, but there is nothing like it. Want to know the REAL contents of most “Social Justice” blogs? They’re every day vignettes. They are just people of color, blogging about their experiences and what affects them. If a white kid did this, would it be social justice? No. It would be just a personal blog. But for some reason, when I talk about being fetishized for my Asian features and the “submissive” qualities of asian women, or perhaps the way that American history classes continually gloss over things like the Japanese Internment Camps and the Chinese Exclusion Act (as shown by my law school classmates’ complete lack of comprehension when reading Kuramatsu), somehow, I’ve got an *agenda*. Somehow, I’m trying to *convert* people. And when I point out racism, I AM ALWAYS LABELLED AS BEING RACIST FOR DOING SO.

That’s only online. That’s only the stuff I put out there. In reality, it extends farther. I was constantly teased and targeted in grade school and high school. Now that I’m in law school, it’s not really ‘teasing.“ It’s more, "I just made a really racist joke and I’m going to laugh and you’re going to laugh too, otherwise you will not be welcome here and you will be punished for being outspoken.” It’s constantly getting catcalls combined with “I can guess what type of Asian you are” and “Ni hao mah, sweethearts!” It’s being told, “No offense, but really, y'all really do look all alike.” It’s my personal bubble being constantly invaded by white men who seem to think accidental eye contact means they can call me “exotic” and “beautiful” and ask about my jade necklace, WHILE TOUCHING IT AS I WEAR IT ON MY NECK.

It’s white women constantly talking about how I must be skinny because I’m Asian, and how I’m so short and petite because I’m Asian, and how it’s not fair that they’re not asian, because white men fetishize asian women and they just want to get laid. Do you know what that’s like? The closest analogy I can come up with is that it’s something like somebody telling an amputee, “I wish I didn’t have legs so I didn’t have to buy pants.”

We see school shootings and bullying and teen suicide in the news all the time. In fact, so many people on youtube have made “It Gets Better” videos that I would assume people would realize that a constant barrage of hate means people eventually break.

Snapping isn’t just in the form of suicide. It’s also in the form of somebody lashing out at that final attacker. Finally screaming their head off against all of the hate and oppression and injustice and general world suck level. It’s somebody seeing a video by “a promising blogger on youtube” that happens to condemn an entire minority group with stereotypes and misinformation and false portrayals. And then reading the comments filled with “LOL” and “so true!” and “omg this made me cry it was so good.”

Good? No. Not good.

I have seen red before and I have probably said inappropriate things to people. But god damn it, I do not regret it one bit. The only thing I regret is that people like Laci Green are routinely portrayed as victims, whereas the people she offended and repressed and misportrayed are constantly depicted as villains in this piece.

Who. Started. it. Matters.

Death threats are scary. We know. Obviously, killing somebody over a stupid youtube video is completely ridiculous and unjustified. But you can hardly call Laci Green’s actions harmless. How many stereotypes did she enforce? How much oppressive behavior did she perpetuate? How many people are going to watch the video and say, “hrm, yeah, that is so true and plus, it’s Laci Green and she knows her shit.”

And when people of color get mad, what happens? “Oh, you’re not helping your cause. You look crazy for getting mad at something like that.”

Crazy? If I’m “crazy” it’s probably just because I’ve finally reached my bullshit breaking point. Somehow, I think it’s ironic that white people have called me a “chink” and a “dyke” and call it justified, whereas I call a white person racist and wrong and oppressive, and get told to sit down, shut up, and move on from being butthurt.

Death threats are never OK? Fine. But apply that shit equally. Stand up for everyone. Prove you actually practice what you preach and stop taking every poor little white girl at face value. Did you ever stop to think as to why, for once, SO MANY “Social Justice” bloggers are actually united in this cause? That maybe, it was just about wrong enough that it was unanimously hated? When was the last time this many people from the POC community (excuse me, but are we even really a community? Do you even know about the factions between us?) agreed on something?

You wouldn’t know, would you? We’re that unimportant. We’re just this huge conglomerate of hate.

Essentially: You talk about us lacking empathy when it never occurred to you: we go through what Laci Green goes through everyday. And paying more attention to people who are angry than WHY they are angry means that you have no empathy at all. You forgot, didn’t you? You forgot about us. Either that, or you never thought about it at all.

You just automatically jumped to a poor little white girl’s defense, and proceeded to condemn it over the internet.

Oh, the irony.



